Loire Valley with tara jensen

October 2 - 7, 2024

Embrace the Loire Valley at the Château de Jalesnes, a 17th-century Renaissance castle, during a week with sourdough baker extraordinaire Tara Jensen.

October 2 - 7, 2024

6 Days, 5 nights

Price from $5,500

Embrace the roots of baking as we gather in the Loire Valley's Château de Jalesnes with wood-fired ovens on a retreat with the wildly talented, seasoned-baker, Tara Jensen. Learn Tara's secrets in crafting sourdough bread and treats while enjoying the region's natural wines. Discover the art of firing up and maintaining the oven and relish dinners cooked in this hot heat. With action-packed days and a hearth near the salt water pool, it'll be an exciting, refreshing, and unforgettable experience. Don't miss this incredible journey back to the heart of baking.

ONLY 3 ROOMs LEFT!!

What will you do?

During our week with Tara Jensen, the focus will be on cooking with fire and doughs of all kinds, but we will also spend some time getting to know the many faces of Loire Valley wines. This region is the epicenter for natural wines and host to hundreds of ardent winemakers who adore their craft. We will ensure that you get a real taste of the Loire during your week with us.

This will be Rêverie’s third year at the Château de Jalesnes, and we are more excited every time. What do we love? The gardens! The spacious kitchen! The beds that you just melllllt into. The bathtubs, the walks, really just all of it!!  

And as much as we love the Château, we are just as excited to get out and visit the places surrounding it. The Loire Valley, fed by the longest river in France, is a lush, mystical region bursting at the seams with wonder, including some of France’s finest patisseries, boulangeries, butchers and farms. We’ll be eating pork rillettes with roasted local fruits, all smeared on a beautiful baguette from our neighboring village, we’ll be knee-deep in the produce of the valley, and we will most certainly not miss an opportunity to use the otherworldly French butter in every possible way we can find, but mostly on steaming hot sourdough right from the hearth. This will be one of our most delicious trips yet!

  • While we hope everyone will participate, all experiences are optional.

  • Rêverie has carefully selected activities and experiences that we believe represent the best of the region and our own expertise, aiming to provide an optimal experience for the participants.

  • Cooking is communal and we have the opportunity to cook together, learn from experienced cooks, and practice new techniques. The kitchen is an open space for everyone.

your guest baker

Get to know:

Tara Jensen

Tara Jensen is an award-winning baker, sought after baking instructor and author of two baking books, A Baker’s Year (St. Martins, 2018) and most recently, Flour Power (Potter 2022), listed as one of the Washington Post’s top 10 cookbooks books of 2022. Her breads, pizzas, pies and pastry have been featured in Bon Appetite, Food & Wine and she was named one Southern Livings’ chefs of the year in 2021. Jensen hosts monthly, in-person baking workshops featuring her mobile, wood fired oven, along with virtual classes on everything from bread to pies, to pizza. She writes a bi-weekly baking focused newsletter to over 9,000 subscribers and posts fun baking content to over 111k Instagram followers under the handle @bakerhands. You can learn more about her here: taraejensen.com.

YOUR ITINERARY

*Please note that changes to the itinerary may occur between now and your retreat start date*

DAY ONE

WEDNESDAY 10.02.24

Welcome to France and the remarkable Château de Jalesnes! You’ll be welcomed right out of the coach with a glass of champagne and some post-travel snacks will be waiting for you inside. You will then settle into your room to rest and reset before we gather for a big, celebratory welcome lunch to kick the week off! In the afternoon where you’ll meet your hosts and settle in with a table full of incredible food and warm welcomes. Come evening, we will all sit down to our first dinner at the château where local vegetables and good wine will be served in abundance! It’s a day to rest and recover and get settled in.

DAY two

THURSDAY 10.03.24

On your first morning with us, you’ll be greeted with our traditional breakfast: fresh local croissants, brioche, and French yogurt, some perfectly boiled, jammy eggs. 

Tara will begin her workshopping today in earnest! She’ll begin with her Workweek Bread, and we’ll have our first day around the hearth - learning how to build and tend the fire and getting comfortable introducing our doughs to it! It will be an exciting day for learning because in the afternoon, we’ll be joined by Manon Lavaud of Aux Saveurs de La Tonnelle for a natural wine class and tasting. We may even get to taste some of her own fantastic Cabernet Franc!

DAY three

FRIDAY 10.04.2024

Today Tara explores Gluten-Free breads with us! We’ll make a beautiful Buckwheat-Oat loaf and a Seeded Rye and play in the fire some more. By now, our hands will be so deep in dough and heat that we will feel like pros. The camaraderie that happens around the fire is like none other and today we’ll all be feeling at home and more and more engaged in the process!

DAY four

SATURDAY 10.05.24

Our first stop on day four will be at La Cabane à Pain, a magical country bakery run by Franck Perrault, one of France’s farmer/bakers - a true GEM! And then it’s on to the city of Angers - Oh, Angers Angers (pronounced AHN-ZHAY). A gorgeous city with a story to tell ! We will drop you off at the Marché La Fayette where you can explore local vendors and do a little shopping. From there, you can head into the city and make your way to the medieval Château d’Angers for a tour, or you can spend some time shopping in the city center. We’ll then meet for a private luncheon with our friends Margot and Louisa at Fricot, a sweet and dear bistro with a great natural wine selection. Then we wrap up our day with a pizza dough workshop and wrap the day with a wood-fired pizza party - yard games, music and good vibes included!

DAY five

SUNDAY 10.06.24

It’s our final full day together and we ease in with a moment to pick Tara’s brain and solidify your sourdough practice before you head back home! We aim for this morning to be slow and easy, giving you some time to pre-pack in your rooms after breakfast and serving one last luncheon together. Then we’ll load up in the vans and head into one of the stunning, wildflower-covered village of Montreuil-Bellay. The wonderful chefs and servers at L’Auberge des Isles will serve us our final supper, complete with plenty of stunning wines, on the patio next to the idyllic canal full of lily-pads, ancient trees and waterfowl.

DAY six

monday 10.07.24

You’ll enjoy one last breakfast in the Château de Jalesnes dining hall before we all say our goodbyes. Our drivers will take you back to the Angers Saint Laud train station. May you leave inspired, refreshed, and filled to the brim with wine and pastries!

workshops

The idea of using a wood-fired oven for cooking can be pretty intimidating, but it is also so very exciting. 

With Tara’s help, you will learn the tricks, challenges and rewards of it all.  And, like any important lesson in life, you will have an opportunity to experiment, make mistakes, troubleshoot and simply play. Basics like how to light the fire, what to bake at the various temperature ranges, and timing the dough with the correct moment in the heat cycle of a wood fired oven are all on deck. We’ll also spread out into some more recipe specific tutorials like using the whole heat cycle from a live fire baking with pizza, to a hot chamber for hearth breads, followed by the glorious long bake of rye in the residual heat.

And under Pizza Party. On Rêverie trips, building your baking foundation will be a paramount goal.  Experiencing the flow from hands-in-dough to tending the fire is the purest way to bake. You’re going to learn so much! All levels of experiences are encouraged to join!

WORKSHOPS

  • Wood Fired Ovens - all the tricks, know-how and intuition that goes with it

  • Pizza Party - we’ll explore a yeasted dough and a dough made with freshly milled flour

  • Simple Naturally leavened loaf - with a traditional wheat starter

  • Buckwheat + oat flour (gluten free loaf) - with a buckwheat starter

  • Seedy Rye bread - rye starter

* Due to the nature of the experience we wish to provide, we can accommodate vegetarians, but will be unable to accommodate any further dietary restrictions.

explore

We can’t wait to show you around!  We’ll take a day trip to Angers, starting at the LaFayette market for sourcing local produce, then shopping in the city, followed by a midday meal at our favorite - Fricot Restaurant. La Tonnelle wine bar in Saumur will give us an introduction to natural wines. For one of our final dinners together, we will venture out to Montreuil-Bellay for an enchanting dinner at L’Auberge des Isles.

OUTINGS

  • Introduction to natural wine with Manon Lavaud of La Tonnelle

  • Explore the beautiful city of Angers and the Marché de Lafayette on Wednesday morning

  • Lunch at Fricot in Angers

  • Dinner at L’Auberge des Isles in Montreuil-Bellay

what’s included

Everything! Well. Except for your ride over the ocean and to the Angers train station. But once you arrive, we got you.

  • Transfers from the Gare d’Angers Saint Laud (Angers train station) to and from the Château de Jalesnes

  • Workshops and all materials associated  

  • Recipes galore

  • All meals, unless you go rogue

  • All wine and beverages, unless you wanna have your own after hours party

  • Private coach transportation while on retreat

  • All scheduled tours and events during our week

  • Chateau lodging, naturally

getting here

*Cost of airfare and train tickets are not included in the cost of your reservation. Please let us know if we can offer any moral support or guidance with your travel plans - we’re happy to help!

Airplane

Guests will fly into Paris (Charles de Gaulle airport - CDG). From there, guests can take a train directly from the airport to Angers, or from the Gare Montparnasse in the Paris city center.  We will arrange for pick up at the Angers Saint Laud train station. For a fee, we can arrange private transport directly from the Charles de Gaulle airport or from your hotel in Paris to the Château de Jalesnes.

Car

The Château de Jalesnes is about a 4-hour drive from the Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport outside of Paris. For those comfortable using a GPS and driving out of big cities, this could be a great way for you to get around and have a little more freedom during your stay with us. If you allow for extra time, you can even take the back roads and enjoy that incredible scenery as you follow along the Loire River. Please let us know if you do decide to rent a car so that we inform our car service.

Train

A few direct trains are available from the Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport to the Angers Saint Laud train stations, and several trains leave the Paris Montparnasse train station every day to Angers. If you’d like to travel by train but are unfamiliar with the system, we would be happy to help you book your ticket.

Travel Reservation

If you would like guidance with booking your travel to the Château de Jalesnes, please reach out! We are happy to help make this part of your trip as easy as possible.

If you would like to extend your stay in France, we are delighted to partner with The French Travel , a locally owned and operated trip designer based in Paris. They are true experts who will help you perfectly plan your before and/or after Rêverie experience. Check them out for more info!

Our friends at Coucou French school offer some incredible online French language classes - whether you’re looking to brush up on your high school French or looking to learn a few phrases to feel more comfortable with travel, Coucou is the way! Check out their website for more information.