Vauvrai wine region

So this past weekend we took a trip to the region of Vauvray, a beautiful area with lots of wineries and beautiful houses. It was for a family gathering my husband's family puts together once every 10 years. Needless to say I didn't know too many of the people there, huge family of cousins, ants and uncles and so on...the setting was beautiful though.

Hotel Noble, Vernou

not even a 2 star hotel, but the setting is great

 Evryone played the traditional French La Petangue (don't know if there's and English correspondent)

And then we visited the village with the very interesting Maisons troglodytes, homes in mountains, like cave homes- you can see the windows carved in the stone

there is even an old clock which is actually way up high

And some pretty sights on the road to the wine cave.

throughout the village of Vernou where we stayed

 a collector's garden

The house of the artist we met sculpting in the cave where we had the wine tasting!
We came across it by chance just wandering through the village.

Zaeli - Sculpteur, Vernou

 

 But we had a good time wine tasting some of the most well perfumed and tastiest white wine I ever had! Here's a glimpse of the wine cave. It was so cool, filled with sculptures of various (3) artists, stone and metal sculptures. Going in.

Caves rupestres
Domaine Bourillon-Dorleans

http://www.bourillon.com/
you will be blown away by their website!


The caves were in fact old stone mines exploited for the nice beige-yellow stone we see everywhere in France, stone used to build the houses and all the buildings around, for entire towns and villages. Having been left with the space, and this being a viticular area,
people started using them as wine caves.

 Apparently we got the wine making skill from the romans, below

We had a guide and it was cool to hear how every image has a story in there. For example this one below: at one glass (of wine) the man sings like a bird, at two he roars like a lion (the lion is on the left) and at three he is as ugly as a monster (which was on the opposite wall).

 Here a man and a woman over a glass of wine

 So here is Zaeli, the sculptor I was telling you about. Amazing work.

 and on our way out....

 

As I promised the artists, I am mentioning their names:

Sculptors:

Zaeli

Jean Claude Baudon 

Michele Miniere