Thanks Mark.

Personal favouries from the Loire? Well, I'd have to mention Huët and Clos Naudin in Vouvray first of all. Not so much the sweet wines; my real favourites are the Demi-Sec wines, and I like the Sec versions too providing I can get to taste them first (the Secs are less reliable and more demanding than the Demi-Secs). The Demi-Secs are world originals – every bit as good as great German Riesling Kabinett or Spätlese as apéritifs, and good with food too. They age magnificently; their fruit spectrum is dazzling; the best are profound and beautiful as well as singular. I always taste anything made by Claude Papin at Pierre Bise with great pleasure, since he is such a talented winemaker and his range is so wide – there’s lots on him in the book. Savennières is another appellation which fascinates me.

The most successful wines from Coulée de Serrant are unforgettable (I only have 1 bottle of the `95 Moelleux left – alas: it has 20 years ahead of it); the wines of Baumard are very good and more reliable, too. Those would be my white favourites. I’ve been very impressed with the reds from both 2003 and 2005, though I’m not sure I have a favourite producer – Thierry Germain at Roches Neuves is very good, as is La Varière under Jacques Beaujeau, but there are plenty of others, too. I was never a great fan of Joguet under Alain Delaunay, but I tasted the 2006 Les Petites Roches made by his successor François-Xavier Barc a while back and thought it a great leap forward – wonderfully deep and focussed. Claude Papin’s reds are excellent.

From all of this you will see that I am, at heart, a ‘Garden of France’ man at heart: it seems to me that the really great wines of the valley are those of Anjou, Saumur and Tours, both red and white. You've reminded me of something I remind myself about regularly: I don't drink them enough! Partly, I think, it is because they aren't offered enough: I must get 20 or 30 'Burgundy offers' for every one 'Loire offer'. We need more Loire evangelists ...