The Loire, France’s longest river at over 1,000 km, flows through numerous wine regions, including Orléans, Anjou, and the Nantes region, which are represented at the FICB by the Confrérie oeno-gastronomique des vins AOC Orléans et Orléans Cléry, the Fins Gousiers d’Anjou, and the Ordre des Chevaliers Bretvins. On the weekend of May 16 and 17, 2026, the confrérie des fins Gousiers d’Anjou held its chapter meeting in Chalonnes-sur-Loire, during the Anjou Wine Festival. More than twenty winemakers were there

The FICB has two members in these territories, the “Hong Kong Wine Society”, and the “Cofraria dos Enofilos de Macau”. En route to the Japan wine discovery tour, our president Marc Lesk stopped off in Hong Kong to meet them. Edward Smith, current President of the Hong Kong Wine Society, and Vernon Moore, Chairman Emeritus, welcomed him to the Hong Kong Club, a historic institution that dates back almost two centuries. An astonishing Riesling from China’s Ninxia province, “the starting