Loire Valley Vacation

My wife had a business trip to London and Paris that firmed up only 2 weeks before the meeting dates.  As we wanted to spend some personal time in France, outside Paris where we have been before, I started hunting for that ideal spot to stay.  We decided on the Loire Valley, and I stumbled across Historic Rentals and the Chateau des Sablons.  I liked the pictures and description online and I received a very prompt response to my booking questions. 
We stayed in the Park View Suite, which has a beautiful new kitchen and bathroom; granite and new appliances in the kitchen, and marble bath with a heated towel rack.  The king bed was quite comfortable, the weather was cooperative, and Jean-Pierre and George were both very friendly and helpful.  We strongly recommend spending the extra money on a winery and chateau tour with Jean-Pierre.  The wineries in France are not like CA, WA or OR; one of the main differences being the language barrier.  Only one of three location had an English speaker on hand, and doing this on our own would have been difficult.   Just finding them would have been hard!  Also, there was never a tasting fee!  Jean-Pierre is very knowledge and took us to unique operations. 
We visited Chateau de Chenonceau and Chateau du Clos Luce, in Amboise, where Leonardo di Vinci spent his final years.  Both were very interesting.  We had lunch in Amboise with Jean-Pierre which was delicious, but not included in the tour charge.  By the way, we were driven in their SUV and were gone for like 9+ hours, so we got our monies worth by far! 
The next day we visited Villandry (on George's recommendation) which was wonderful as the weather was the best of our 3-day stay; mid-70s and clear.  This is important, because the gardens here are unreal, and you will want to spend lots of time outdoors.  This chateau is privately owned, and while decorated in period furnishings and style, felt very personal and "homey" compared to the others we saw.  Don't pass on climbing the staircase to the top of the keep; fantastic photo location. 
That evening, George gave us and their other guests a tour of the chateau along with the history of the building and what they have done to make it into these wonderful rental suites.  We plan on going to some of the other properties in the future.
The only "negatives" in the visit would be that the Apple podcast system they have (because there is no cable TV) is hampered by bandwidth issues and freezes constantly even during newscasts; forget trying to watch a movie.  They other is that it would be great if there was a detailed town map of Bourgueil showing the restaurants and markets and ATM locations as wandering around hoping to stumble on their location is tough, especially if it is dark.