Tuffeau, Bourré's white gold A majestic stone

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Behind the ancient tuffeau quarries of the Loire Valley now lie cellars and mushroom beds.

The tufa stone galleries

The Bourré cliffs

It’s an impressive figure: 580 km of galleries in the belly of the Bourré cliffs, a small valley near Montrichard in the south of the Loir-et-Cher region. But it’s not quite as impressive as what visitors can see outside the old tuffeau stone quarries (formerly known as “perrières”).

Stone of light, or pierre des rois (stone of kings), marks the Loire Valley with its mineral stamp. Châteaux, large and small, churches, abbeys, dwellings, perimeter walls, bridges, monuments and more. For many centuries, every building that rose from the ground was made of this stone, which came from the underground tunnels dug by quarrymen, formerly known as “perriers”.

The Cave des Roches

This is the most notable example, since an underground city preserves intact the surface façades that are subject to erosion. The Delalande family has 120 km of galleries, and the first traces of extraction date back to the 11th century, ending in 1920 due to rising prices.

The famous “Bourré” stone, the most famous and noble tuffeau stone, comes from marine sedimentation (organisms deposited on the seabed) and rock fragments carried by rivers in the form of alluvium. These sediments have whitened and hardened over time: in the underground galleries, 90 million years of history await you!

Lives after the pearls

After quarrying ceased, the constant temperature of the galleries (between 10 and 12°C) and the hydrometry of around 80% make them ideal for use as a cellar and mushroom farm.

Button mushrooms, blue button mushrooms, oyster mushrooms and even Japanese shiitake mushrooms stand side by side with an astonishing city carved out of the tufa rock by Christian Lhermite.

Between 1998 and 2001, Lhermite had the idea of memorizing the surface buildings and carving them out of the stone, in order to preserve a trace of this architecture. Because tuffeau is very brittle, it deteriorates with time, weathering and atmospheric pollution.

An unusual playground

These mysterious places have aroused the curiosity of tourists. The team at Troglo Dégusto, just a stone’s throw from the Château de Chenonceau, plays on this curiosity, offering tours of the galleries, riddles and escape games.

Rest assured, in the end, all ends well, with a wine tasting, for let’s not forget that the cellars are their ideal place of preservation.

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