Also known as the winemaker’s tart!
For a long time, Chinon has been famous for its vineyards. The grapes grown on either side of the River Vienne are made into the famous Chinon wine. For noble gastronomic reasons, it can then be turned into red wine jam. This jam is the key ingredient for making the delicious winemaker’s tart with apples.
Recipes and ingredients for winemaker’s tart with apples
Tarte vigneronne
As is often the case, each cookery blog has its own recipe. Most recipes for this dessert use puff pastry, but some have also experimented with shortcut pastry. The same goes for the wine jam. Methods vary, with or without a pinch of cinnamon, with or without orange, with white sugar or brown sugar, etc.
As for the apples, thinly sliced Golden Delicious often seem to be the chosen option, even if there must be other versions. Some cooks caramelise them with butter and sugar before baking.
But where can you find the real recipe for the tarte vigneronne?
The tarte vigneronne versus… the tarte du vigneron!
The answer is to be found in Chinon, in Rue Neuve de l’Hôtel de Ville, to be precise. At the heart of the city’s medieval streets, the Pâtisserie Ayrole cake shop window celebrates the “good food attitude”. It’s hard to resist temptation, and anyway, why should you? In all, 150 winemaker’s tarts delight food lovers each year. To be precise, 150 “tartes du vigneron”. The name was registered in 1994 by its creator, Patrice Ayrole.
The Ayrole pastry shop, in the town of Chinon.
Patrice Ayrole, the creator of the tarte vigneronne
The royal fortress of Chinon - Loire Valley, France.
Patrice had his eureka moment after tasting the incredible wine confit made by Claude Fleurisson, with its delicious spicy notes. When he retired, Claude entrusted his secret recipe to Patrice Ayrole. Patrice had been using it in his own tarte vigneronne recipe for over 25 years: a lovely bright red colour covering the apples, circled with the white, lightly sprinkled icing sugar and with a glimpse of the golden yellow puff pastry below. Mmm, we can imagine tasting it already, served with a sparkling Château de l’Aulée, a sweet Vouvray from Château de Valmer, or a rosé wine from Château du Petit Thouars.
Tarte vigneronne ingredients
This apple tart can be made for one, four, six or eight people. It is now Chinon’s local speciality, so much so that the Pâtisserie Ayrole cake shop is now included in sightseeing tours of the town, alongside the royal fortress of Chinon and the wine cellars in and around the town.
Useful information
Ayrole Pastry Shop – 02 47 93 07 15
5 rue Neuve de l’Hôtel de Ville, 10 meters from the Chinon Tourist Office.