There is a short cycle route through the Loire in France that leads right through the Bouvet Ladubay wine cellar in Saumur, past hundreds of oak barrels storing sparkling wine.
You will not find the route marked on any maps; it has no name and is only 8km long.
The Troglodyte sparkling wine cellars, some of which are up to 40m underground, have been accessible to cyclists since 2014.
So you can head out on your own bike or get a vintage model, with refurbished bicycles available for rent nearby.
Set aside two hours for the trip – including tasting.
Once you’re in the cellars, it’s cool and in the half darkness, the smell of oak barrels and volcanic rock hits you all of a sudden.
A few metres later, you realise why. “The underground galleries are carved out of the white limestone that is used to build castles, churches, monasteries and bridges in the Loire Valley,” says Juliette Monmousseau, who has headed the vineyard since 2015.
The Benedictine abbey of Saint-Florent was also once made of the same tuff stone and today, some of the sparkling wine is stored in its former cellars.
Saumur is the second-largest producer of sparkling wine after Champagne.
Pedal a little further and you start to see sculptures and columns carved out of the stone. Monmousseau says more than 30 bas-reliefs, capitals and column fragments decorate the underground tunnels.
People around here call the wine cellar the “cathédrale engloutie” which translates as sunken cathedral for that reason.
It dates back to a request by her father who was president of the sparkling wine house, Patrice Monmousseau. He asked sculptor Philippe Cormand to create the forms in memory of the 11th century abbey of Saint-Florent.
The oak barrels that line the route contain the house’s special vintage – the Tresor, meaning treasure.
The Tresor Brut Blanc is produced like a champagne in traditional bottle fermentation that gives it aromatic diversity.
You’ll get a chance to taste it at the end of this unusual wine cellar bicycle tour.
Monmousseau says in contrast to champagne from the Loire, it is not the white Chardonnay grape variety that dominates, but Chenin Blanc.
Saumur is famous for its sparkling wines, and in France, the wine-growing region is the largest producer of these wines after Champagne.
Bouvet Ladubay is one of the oldest sparkling wine producers in the Loire, and the wines that are made here are Saumur Brut and Cremant de Loire.
The back story
The company is also the market leader, selling some six million bottles each year. Some 60% of its Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay is exported, particularly to the United States and Germany.
The tour lasts an hour and fifteen minutes, the tasting takes 30 minutes as there’s a great deal to be tasted and explained.
The story begins with the history of the house, founded in 1851 by 23-year-old Bouvet and his wife Celestine Ladubay.
Within just a few years, the son of a cooper had created a prosperous company that came to be the official supplier to the British Parliament.
Bouvet was a visionary and an aesthete. Alongside production buildings, he also built his own power station to light his 8km-long cellars, apartments for his employees and his very own theatre.
But after World War I and the economic crisis of 1929, the house in Saint-Hilaire-Saint-Florent in Saumur was sold in 1932. It was bought by the current president’s grandfather.
Alongside Saphir Brut Vintage, Cremant de Loire Excellence and Brut de Loire, visitors also taste Tresor Blanc. Its fruity and spicy note was created by Patrice Monmousseau. Meanwhile the name refers to the legend that Bouvet found a relic that the monks of Saint-Florent hid in their cellars. A genuine treasure, Tresor in fact.
The history of the house is a little like a saga that began in 1851 and continues to this day, says Monmousseau.
The spirit of its founder continues with the Monmousseaus who opened a centre for contemporary art in the converted power station in 1992. Next they renovated and reopened the theatre founded by Bouvet, with its 140 seats, in 1993.
Monmousseaus finishes by saying that the tour of the wine cellar on a bicycle completes the circle, as the company founder was also a bicycle fan. He created the first cycling track in Saumur in 1894. – dpa