A Ramble to Sancerre

8 Jun 2023

We went off on a one-day ramble south to the town of Sancerre - home of our favorite white wine. We had a fine lunch, got some wine from the same winery at which we’ve bought wine since 2013, then visited an interesting abbaye on the way back. A long day, certainly, but highly enjoyable.

Sancerre - the town and the wine

The town of Sancerre - about and hour and a half south of us here in Bois-le-Roi - sits on a hilltop, the perfect image of a charming French village. The town itself exists now for one reason: selling Sancerre wine to people who come for that reason. The result is that Sancerre has beautiful views over the countryside, some excellent restaurants, lots of places to taste and buy wine and not much else.

The view from the town of Sancerre. It's the same in all directions: miles and miles of vines. Here's Laurie taking in the view. (I get requests to show more pictures of us, so here's one of Laurie...)

These four vehicles have no driver in them, no engines running; they are parked. They are parked under a sign that says "No parking on either side of the street." They don't even obey the one cardinal rule of parking in France: If you're going to park in a "No Parking" zone, put your emergency blinkers on. And this is—supposedly—an active street.

This is where we tasted a couple Sancerres at our favorite Sancerre winery. When we were there, the machinery was putting labels and capsules on bottles. I've before commented on the lack of pretension in most French wineries - no fancy tasting rooms, no ballcaps, no tee-shirts. Just "Here are our wines. Try some and buy some if you like it."

Laurie and I had decided to buy twelve bottles of Sancerre white. At lunch, though, Mary ordered a Sancerre Rosé, and on a hot day, it was perfect. Laurie and I looked at each other and said, “We’ve got to have some of that!” So we ended up with twelve bottles of white and six of rosé. We had a rosé yesterday and knew we’d made a good decision.

Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire

After lunch and wine-buying we took a side trip to see the Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, which was more or less on the way back home. The Abbaye has a long and illustrious history which can be summed up as:

In 651, a monastery was founded here, the first to follow the rules of the Benedictine order. Soon after, relics of Saint Benoît were transferred here (“relics” meaning some bones). A church was built to house them.

In 1051 a fire destroyed the church. The current Abbaye was built to replace it. It was completed by 1108. The Tower Porch was completed in 1218.

By the start of the 13th century there were 170 monks living in the monastery, the peak population over its history.

At the end of the 16th century, the Abbaye and monastery were in dilapidated condition and abandoned.

In 1850 a small monastery was re-estabished here. In 2017, there were 17 monks living at the monastery. The Abbaye has been taken over, restored and maintained by the French government and is used by the monks of the monastery for services.

The Abbaye is impressive:

*The Tower Porch of the Abbaye, built in the early 1100s.*

*The choir stalls, done in the Middle Ages, are said to be the best still existing from that time.*

The Abbaye and its history are interesting and worth a visit. To me, it’s also a bit unsettling, as it shows the wealth and power that the Catholic Church had in France for centuries. At a time when almost every person was stuggling just to survive from one day to the next, this small monastery had enough money to build this beautiful and impressive monument to a relatively small figure in the pantheon of saints. Not sure I agree with that use of church money, then or now.