We made our way to one of the most well-known (and the most fun to say) regions in France's wine country — Chatenaueuf du Pape. Apparently, the wines from this region were huge hits back in the day and many of the wineries ride on those coattails. Neither Bill nor I have much liked wines from this region and now I know why. I learned that there are a handful of wineries that have recently been pushing their limits, employing new methods and trying new things. These wineries are the ones to watch in the region… well, at least that's what our teacher, Peter, explained to us.
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| Which winery shall we go to? |
We arrived at Domaine des Sénéchaux, a winery that dates back to the 14th century (!!) to find gigantic wine barrels in a cool cellar. Have I mentioned it was hot while we were in France last summer? Anyway, the cool cellar was very refreshing and we were all happy to get out of the sun.
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| Giant wine barrels |
After a quick tour and some cheesy posing with the enormous barrels, it was time to do some tasting.
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| Hangin' with a giant wine barrel |
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| Ladies with large wine barrels |
Unfortunately, this was one of the wineries where the tour leader didn't have much English. Most of our group are British and most Brits have at least a limited amount of French (French is like their Spanish, it's what most people learn in school), so they didn't work too hard to translate into English. But they had English write-ups and the wine spoke for itself! We drank one red, one white and they were both yummy. These wines were cheaper at the winery than they would have been in a shop, but they were still the most costly wines of our tour. I purchased one of each and am keeping them for an appropriate occasion… like 'I've baked a cake!' or 'friends are coming 'round!'
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| First wine |
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| Second wine tasted |
After our wine tasting we had time to grab a quick lunch in town. It was a really quaint, small village with only a handful of shops. We didn't have much time to wander, but what there was to see was lovely.
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| Cute store fronts |
