Château de Valmer

The Château de Valmer is located over near Vouvray. It's a wine producing château that is also famous for its garden, most notably its vegetable garden that preserves historic varieties.

One of the terraces at Valmer, with vine-covered hillside behind. The château itself burned down a while back, so there are only out-buildings left, and a good sized secondary home.

We visited Valmer one day in May and strolled around for a while, envious of the resources and talent that these gardeners have.

Now this is what I call a vegetabel garden! This is just the centerpiece, of course, with plots and trellises and coldframes all around.

The gardeners used terra cotta roof tiles as signs. These are two varieties of pears that were espaliered along a south-facing wall.

A watering can.

Most of the vegetables and herbs were just getting started, of course. I'd love to go back toward the end of July and see what the produce is like! We also tasted some of their wine since the tasting was included in the price of admission. The sparkling was quite good, and we bought a few bottles which quickly disappeared around dinner time.

One corner of the vegetabel garden.