LOUIS DE GRENELLE SPARKLING SAUMUR

Deep under the cobbled streets of Saumur, miles and miles of caves wind their way through the soft limestone bedrock. Carved out over the last millennium, these caverns and passages were dug by prisoners serving sentences for smuggling, most having been caught violating la gabelle – the punitive pre-revolutionary salt tax. One of the last remaining family-owned sparkling wine houses in Saumur, Louis de Grenelle, owns about 2 kilometers of these caves.