Salon des Vins de Loire 2014 – the awards

Exhausted but very happy, I spent the day at the Salons des Vins de Loire on Monday, meeting, greeting and tasting with the winemakers of the region and the crowds of trade buyers who had come to make contact and do deals.

Organic Loire Valley Wines stand

This is a huge show and I have promised myself that one year I will do it properly, spending two or three days here and staying at a local hotel. It is the only way to do this exhibition justice.

The annual Concours des Ligers is an important part of the show, handing out awards to the best wines. This year 2283 wines were offered to the judges, who awarded 145 Gold medals, 239 Silver and 256 bronze. These medals will be very important in the sales and marketing of the award winning wines and the competition is hotly contested.

The show and the competition covers the whole of the Loire region but here is my selection of winners from the area I have chosen as home – the appellations of the Touraine and Valençay. If you click on a list it will come up in another window and be easier to read.

Gold medal winners – concours ed ligers 2014

Silver medal winners

Bronze

I made some valuable contacts, chatting to winemakers who would be pleased to receive our wine tour clients and others who make superb wines which impressed me on a personal level. Everywhere there was pride and passion for the creation of an amazing product in conditions which are often challenging. Its an inspiring place to be.

Angers – centre of the wine world.

Salons de Vins de Loire

During the first week of February the attention of the wine world focuses to a small town on the banks of the river Maine in central France, in the heart of the Loire Valley wine region.

Angers is the venue for the Salons des Vins de Loire, promoting the third largest wine producing area of France with a production of around 400 million bottles from 70,000 Ha (173,000 acres) of vines.

The Salons des Vins de Loire is the only major exhibition in Europe which features the wines of a single region, with 600 stands receiving around 9,000 wine-trade visitors from around the world. At the same time, eight fringe shows attract these potential clients before, during and after the exhibition, making this the “must see” heart of the wine world, for this week at the very least.

Vins Anonymes show, Angers

Needless to say I have tickets and I’m very excited to be attending for the first time, but I am also considering which of the other shows I should visit. At the ancient Collégiale Saint-Martin d’Angers the organisation representing a number of young winemakers called Les Vins Anonymes are exhibiting ‘natural’ wines from some thirty French producers, a good selection from the Loire amongst them.

I have been invited to a tasting of organic wines at the Greniers Saint Jean in Angers, whose organisers are also involved in the Diva Bouteille show at the Chateau Brézé, a fantastic venue in the huge underground caves beneath the ancient castle down river from Angers in the Saumur appellation.

This show features a selection of 45 organic wine producers from the Loire, but also some from the regions of Champagne, Alsace, Jura, Savoie, Bourgogne, Beaujolais, Bordeaux and the South-west, Rhône, Languedoc, Roussillon and Provence – Corsica. In addition a number of growers from other European and American countries are coming over for the event.

Dive wine tasting

This all sounds like a great day out and I have invited our friend Stanley Browne, the ex-Chairman of the Vintners’ Association and a Loire wine expert, to join us on the Sunday. I gather he is arranging train connections from the UK as we speak!

On Monday I shall be working, on my own and concentrating on the Salons des Vins. That should be more than enough excitement for one day.