A BUYING TRIP TO BURGUNDY AND THE LOIRE

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That night we have a dull meal - the worst meal of the trip - but our room is comfortable, and first thing next morning we go and have a look at the chateau and fortified church before heading off into the fog for Azay-le-Rideau -

Domaine Pascal Pibaleau, Azay-le-Rideau. I have been buying M. Pibalean's wines for a number of years through agents in this country. I'm a fan of his wines, and we are gradually selling more and more of them, so it seems logical to start shipping them direct ourselves. Also, since we were in the Loire, I thought he would be worth visiting, plus a friend of mine had dropped in on him and discovered that he made an interesting red from the Cot (Malbec) grape. My friend had given me a taste of it, but the agents don't ship it.

We start the tasting with a rose 2001. It is fine, with a nice full finish. I have been buying this wine since the 1994 vintage, and it is a consistently good drink. It is made from the Groslot grape, which suffers a bad press - but just try this wine - it's lovely.

Next his dry white 1999, which is light, with a touch of the nettley smell I associate with Chenin Blanc from the Loire.

Then an oak-aged white (3 to 5 year old barrels) made from old vines (40 years). This is wonderful, with a noticeable oaky flavour. He calls this La Noblesse d'Aziaum. It is from the 2000 vintage. Lovely wine.

Next we taste his reds. The star of the show, which turns out to be a special bottling (the counterpart of the Noblesse), called L'Héritage d'Aziaum, is his Cot, 2000 vintage: it has a dense dark colour, dense, rich smell, and brilliant flavour, with quite a bit of body without being over extracted. It also has impressive length and good acidity, promising a long and interesting development ahead of it.

Would we like to taste his 2002s? Of course we would t Again, exciting. Finally we go back to his office and taste two more wines - his Cremant de Loire, which impressed me so much I might buy some: small, frothy bubbles, good yeasty smell, with a good, full flavour. Lastly, his demi-sec 1999 - one of my favourite wines: it always tastes riper to me than his dry white - altogether a better drink.

M. Pibaleau asked us if we were on the look-out for other wines in the region, and I said sure. So he rang a friend of his, and we arranged to go for a tasting after lunch at two o'clock.

We had an hour or two to kill in the meantime. We went to look at the chateau in the town of Azay-le-Rideau, one of the best known in the Loire. It now belongs to the French state, and has been immaculately restored, perhaps a bit too immaculately, with perfect parquet floors everywhere, which look badly out of place.

We still had some time, so we went to look at another chateau, Villandry, with magnificent formal gardens, and the chateau nestling into a hillside. Forme this was a rather more satisfying place, even though the château itself was shut. There was a bell high up on a wall in the courtyard as yon enter, with a long chain banging down and a notice inviting you to pull it to summon somebody to take your entrance fee. We pulled it. Nobody came. We set off round the gardens. We passed an estate worker. We said hello and that we'd rung the bell and nobody had come, and he said go ahead help yourself, look round the place. So we felt morally in the clear..

We got to our tasting, during which we were told about another grower in the next village, and would we like to go tasting there too? Of course we would. So the lady who was attending to us rang her friend in the next village and after finishing with her we went on to the next place.

By the time we'd finished the second unscheduled tasting we were running late for our next appointment. This was with an Englishman...