Village sign and autumnal colours (CRM)
We had the recent pleasure (5th October) of visiting one of our favourite restaurants – La Promenade, run by the Dallais family.
Fabrice is increasingly taking over from his father, Jackie Dallais, in the kitchen after
working in some top restaurants in Paris. The food, as usual, was a
gastronomic delight – inventive, delicious, and impeccably
presented. The wine list is equally stunning. There is a strong
emphasis on the wines of the Loire but the sommelier, Xavier Fortant,
has introduced an increasing number of wines from Burgundy and the
Rhône. Having considered a Vieilles Vignes from Burgundy, Xavier
persuaded us that he would find something better suited to our chosen
dishes! The wine he chose, a 2005 Auxey-Duresses from Coche-Dury, proved
to be a perfect accompaniment for both our pigeon and turbot – pinot
noir at its best.
We didn't have far to stagger home to the chambre d'hôtes that we have come to love, Au Fil de l'Aigronne. It is just across the road from the restaurant and run by the very friendly and welcoming Valérie and Loïc Bobon. At breakfast the next morning we discovered that, like us, all our companions had eaten at La Promenade!
Old vine on the outskirts of Le Petit Pressigny (CRM)
What first caught our attention were the figures in the vineyard – an amazing band of arm-waving dancers in strange costumes. Are they very ornate scarecrows or inventive sculptures?
Scarecrows or sculptures? (CRM)
(above and below)
My favourite! (CRM)
Across the road from La Promenade - poitron velouté demain? (CRM)
4 comments:
Jim, I was having one of my irregular trawls through your blog this morning and looking at the Petit Pressigny entry thinking... Saturday... thank goodness he's written 'recent'... we've had almost continuous rain since l'Art et Lard... 30mm since this Friday... most of it yesterday... I wonder if those wonderful scare-sculptures are still standing.
The Aigronne rose about 18 pouces from the early morning level by lunchtime... we had to drive to Charnizay in the afternoon and the river was much higher there... backed up all the way from Petit Pressigny.
This year the vignerons have had problems... but so have all the agriculturalists... there was unharvested maize that had been knocked sideways and fields of soggy sunflowers with heads that look as though they are not worth harvesting... that is if they can get the machines onto the fields now!
Tim. Thanks. We were there on 5th October. Since I returned from the Loire I have been keeping an eye on the weather stats and see that Tours has had 114mm to Friday. Already way over the average for the whole month and heading towards the record – just over 150mm.
Update on Tours weather station: 126mm to yesterday 20th October. Record for month is 152.1 October 1966.
Jim, I downloaded the rainfall from our Maplins' weather station this morning... 172mm in the last month... 22nd to 22nd.
Even with the meteociel forcasted dry spell for the next week, I cannot see how the machines can get onto the floodplain 'swamps' without damage to the soil structure... the hillside fields might be OK... but on my way to Loches this AM some of the tops were as bad for standing water as the low areas.
I saw what I presumed was a farmer... he was dressed in 'bleus'... standing in a waterlogged roadside field scratching his head... wish I'd had a camera with me.
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