A Saturday in Tours, Vouvray & Loire Valley
One Saturday in Touraine with friends: Foreau in Vouvray, tapas above Saint-Gatien, the Château de l'Islette and an evening on the Indre.
Some Saturdays just fall into place. This one was a gift to old friends from Paris — a couple we first met in Shanghai years ago — who had come down to spend the weekend with us. They wanted to see "our corner" of the Loire Valley, and we wanted to show them the version of Touraine we love: a winemaker who still does the talking himself, a brand-new rooftop opposite a Gothic cathedral, a Renaissance château with no entry queue, and an evening apéro on the banks of the Indre.
We left Tours mid-morning for Vouvray and didn't get home until well after sunset. Here's how it played out, and how you can do the same.
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Morning at Domaine du Clos Naudin (Vouvray)
Our day started in the cellar of Vincent Foreau at the Domaine du Clos Naudin, on the Croix Buisée hill above Vouvray. Vincent is the third generation of Foreau winemakers — his grandfather André started the estate, his father Philippe built its reputation as one of the great names in Loire chenin, and Vincent has been quietly running things for the last few years. He answers the phone, opens the door himself, and pours every glass.
Pierrick's words afterwards: "An incredible tasting experience. A guy in his forties who took over a family institution from father to son, and who passionately shares every secret of his Vouvray. Chenin has this particularity — every cuvée is unique depending on sunshine, rain, the year. Wines that end up on the lists of the best starred restaurants in the region — sparkling, dry, off-dry, sweet, all designed for subtle food pairings. Time stood still in that cellar."
What makes a tasting at Foreau different is that he walks you through the food pairings he has built, cuvée by cuvée, over the years. A few notes from our morning:
- Vouvray Sec 2024 (3.5 g/l) — chalky minerality, citrus and a hint of iodine. Built for a scallop carpaccio or a raw-fish tartare. - Vouvray Demi-Sec 2022 (21 g/l) — candied citrus running through (clementine, orange, grapefruit). Tailor-made for Thai cuisine (ginger, lemongrass, coriander) or a lobster marinated in curry. - Vouvray Moelleux Réserve 2018 (132 g/l) — complex nose: ripe banana, pear, old rum, vanilla, guava. Drink as an aperitif, or alongside an exotic dessert. Will keep 30–40 years. - Vouvray Moelleux Réserve 2022 (148 g/l, the rarest one) — botrytis, sun-soaked grapes hand-selected. Pour it as an aperitif over a mirabelle plum tart, or to lift a tropical-fruit dessert. 35–40 years of cellaring ahead of it.
The estate also produces an Extra Brut 2019 méthode traditionnelle (four years on lees before disgorgement, dosage at 1.5 g/l) — fine, lively bubbles, perfect to start an evening with.
> Practical — Vincent welcomes visitors by phone appointment only, on Saturday mornings and Saturday afternoons, in French. Call +33 2 47 52 71 46 or write to leclosnaudin.foreau@orange.fr. He doesn't take walk-ins and he doesn't list himself on the wine-tour platforms — that's part of the charm.
If you can't get a slot at Foreau (and you may well not), a Vouvray Wine Half-Day Tour from Tours is the next best way to discover the appellation with a local winemaker.
Lunch on the rooftop at La Belle Vue (Tours)
We came down from Vouvray and drove the fifteen minutes back into Tours for lunch. La Belle Vue is the new rooftop everyone's been talking about — it opened a few weeks ago, on top of a building tucked right behind the Cathédrale Saint-Gatien. The terrace is roughly thirty metres from the cathedral's flank. You sit down with tapas in front of you and a five-hundred-year-old Gothic façade looking back at you.
Inside, the room has been done with a chic-but-relaxed touch — long black bar fronted in yellow marquetry, cognac-leather stools, restored beams, a niche on the wall that still feels like the chapel it once was. The lunch is built around tapas, the wine list is tight and well chosen, and the staff move quickly without rushing you.
Then we went outside to the terrace. The two flamboyant towers of Saint-Gatien — fifteenth and sixteenth century — sat right above us under a cloudless sky. It is exactly the kind of spot you want to bring friends visiting Tours for the first time.
A short nap before the road
We drove home after lunch. The morning at Foreau and the long lunch in the sun caught up with us, and the rest of the afternoon turned, very honestly, into a one-hour nap (the lunch had lingered well past dessert). There's a reason Touraine days have this rhythm — the food and the wine deserve the pause.
Late afternoon at the Château de l'Islette
By late afternoon we were back on the road, this time south of the river towards Cheillé, just outside Azay-le-Rideau. Our destination was the Château de l'Islette — a small Renaissance château on the Indre, privately owned and still lived in. It's the antithesis of the busy Chambord and Chenonceau crowds: intimate, warm, family-run.
L'Islette is famous for one love story: Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin spent the summer of 1892 here, and you can still feel that quiet, romantic charge in the rooms. We didn't go inside this time — there was a plant and flower fair taking over the garden that weekend, which was reason enough to wander the grounds for an hour and come home with a few pots.
The light at that time of day was perfect — warm sun on the white tuffeau, the willow leaves bending over the water, the pond holding the château's reflection almost still. We crossed the little bridge over the Indre at the back of the park and found another, even quieter view.
Pierrick made a note for next time: the interior of L'Islette is genuinely worth a proper visit for the Camille Claudel and Rodin story. Booking is recommended — the place is small and privately owned, and they cap visitor numbers. You can browse the Château de l'Islette on GetYourGuide as a starting point.
Apéro at L'Îlot d'Azay
We drove the last few kilometres into Azay-le-Rideau village around six. We weren't there to visit the château — we'd done that on a previous trip — just for a drink at our favourite spot in town: L'Îlot d'Azay, the open-air terrace at the foot of the Château d'Azay-le-Rideau.
Driving in, you pass this house on Avenue Adélaïde Riché — completely sheathed in ivy, the green tracing every angle of the building. It's the unofficial signature of arriving in Azay-le-Rideau village.
A few hundred metres further on, just south of the château on the D751A, the road bends past the old mill. The sun was already low. The water at the small weir was almost copper. This is the photo I'll keep from the day — golden hour over the Indre, the start of the magic light.
L'Îlot d'Azay sits a short walk from there. It's the textbook drink-on-a-terrace-with-a-beautiful-backdrop spot: shaded riverside terrace, drinks and ice creams, sharing boards, a wood-fired brasero, a pétanque court, a ping-pong table and, on summer evenings, the occasional concert.
Down the slope from the terrace there's a tiny patch of sandy beach on the Indre, with a footbridge in the background. It feels like a private slice of the Loire — except it isn't private at all, you can just walk down.
We grabbed a round of drinks, sat at one of the wooden tables on the lawn, and the kids inevitably went for the orange popsicles. The grown-ups went for the brasero side of the menu.
The brasero is a round VIVON unit (the kind you see in modern garden setups), and the cook stands in the middle, flipping galettes around the rim as they go golden. It's the country-fair energy turned into a craft thing — and at the end of a long day in the sun, watching the galettes cook while the light fades over the Indre is exactly what an apéro should feel like.
We headed home around seven for dinner with the kids and the friends. End of a Saturday in Touraine.
Reproduce this day
If you want to do a version of this Saturday yourself, here's the kit. We've used and verified all of these — the affiliate links help us keep writing.
- Vouvray — half-day tasting from Tours : if you can't get a slot with Vincent Foreau (family cellar, phone bookings only), book a Vouvray Wine Half-Day Tour from Tours to discover the chenin appellation with a local winemaker. - Loire Valley — full-day wine tour with lunch : for the deeper dive across Vouvray, Bourgueil and Chinon, the Loire Valley Wine Tour with lunch — three estates is the best one we've found. - Château d'Azay-le-Rideau : the visit we didn't have time for this Saturday. Pre-book your entry ticket to the Château d'Azay-le-Rideau if you're going on a weekend in season. - Combo Azay + Villandry : if you have a half-day to spare, a combined tour of the Châteaux of Azay-le-Rideau and Villandry from Tours is a clean way to do both without driving yourself. - Tours, the city : the full list of activities in Tours sits on the Tours page on GetYourGuide. - Where to stay : the Stay22 search below covers Tours intra-muros, Vouvray on the east side and Azay-le-Rideau on the west. Pick Vouvray if you're here for the wine, Tours if you want a city base, Azay if you want quiet and the countryside.
About this guide
This isn't a generic Loire Valley round-up. We live thirty minutes from these places, and everything you've just read happened on Saturday 9 May 2026 — one day out with friends visiting from Paris, photographed as it unfolded. The cellar visit at Foreau, the tapas at La Belle Vue, the one-hour nap, the orange popsicles at L'Îlot d'Azay — same day, same order, no rearrangement. The thirteen photos are mine, taken with an iPhone 16.
Pierrick lives in Touraine with Steph and their two kids; he's been writing about France's quieter corners on MapTrotting for years. If you want more of these slow, lived-in days out, start with the rest of our France coverage — and let us know what we should cover next.