Although we are in the Loire Valley we haven't yet seen a lot of the Loire river itself so we plan a route to remedy that.

But first we must go back to the farm to say 'thank you' to our hosts. Instead of buying wine we leave with two big bags of apples from the farm, €3.50 for 2kg.

Heading north we reach Langeais and cross the Loire over a substantial bridge on the other side of which is a car park where we stop to take a good look. We don't remember ever seeing the Loire in sunshine, memories of our previous sightings of it are drab brown water, muddy banks and grey cloudy sky. But today the sky is blue, water is sparkling azure, rippling in the wind and the sandbanks are almost white. We continue our journey along the north levee with frequent vistas over the water and sandy islands flecked with green trees.

In La Chapelle sur Loire we spot a boulangerie and are just in time to buy bread and apple tarts before they close, but if we arrived later there was always the baguette vending machine outside.

We take our bread down to a park on the riverbank and enjoy a leisurely picnic in the sunshine.

Restigne, 3km away, has a service point we need to use and although the aire looks nice, in view of the church tower, the aires book warns of 'Hell's bells' at night. We go a few more km to an attractive aire at Benais. The little town looks very old and attractive in its weathered off-white stone but the aire is full, so we reprogramme to a France Passion Paul had selected earlier.

The route leads us back across the river on a lattice box bridge which is a bit on the narrow side to Turquant. We can pass oncoming cars OK but opposing vans need to retract wing mirrors and almost stop to pass safely.

Once on the south side we travel alongside lots of troglodyte houses carved out of or built into the sheer limestone cliff face. They vary from mot much more than little niche caves to some quite elaborately decorated facades.

Once through the village of Souzay Champigny, our France Passion, Domaine de Ratron, is accessed along a single track drive up between the sloping vines. We park on the terrace and meet our host, Melon, who invites us for tasting at 17:00

It is a very good tasting session as Melon explains about the vineyard and each wine to us in excellent English. They grow a grape called Cabernet Franc which has black skin and white flesh and results in a soft, fruity white wine called l'eclat [which translates as 'sparkles']. Next we try two very different versions of sparkling Saumur Champigny, [Champagne in all but name]. One is bottled while the sugar-yeast fermentation process is still active, the other is bottled after and then has sugar added during bottling. Onto the reds; The traditional 'cordeliers' is a soft, slightly young but easy drinking wine. Nick says it reminds him of the St Nicolas de Borguiel wines we drank back in the 90s and Melon says it would be so, because the soil and grapes are the same. The next two reds are richer, gold medal winners with lots of body and tannins.

We are also told how one hailstorm can ruin 3 years worth of production and how the limestone and firestone in the soil act like storage heaters, absorbing heat from the sun and releasing it through the night, all adding to the wines' characters.

After tasting we are shown the bottling plant which processes 130,000 bottles per year.

A great hour of tasting, education and insight into the world of wine.