Avignon, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, FranceFrance Chapter 5
Farewell Les Baux and on to Avignon
We felt sad to bid adieu to Greg and Todd this morning. They are taking a train back to Paris for a couple days, then home to Los Angeles. Warren and Pam met our driver Pierre to continue our adventure in Avignon. Pierre, as you can see in the photo, is a character! Born into a wine making family dating back to the 1600’s in Chateauneuf de Pape, he tried his hand in the business world, then after 15 years in marketing he decided to go to Sommelier school in London to learn the art of wine and perfect his English. He retuned home to Chateauneuf de Pape and now does wine tours and also serves on their City Council.
Pierre took us to wineries in Vacqueryas and Gigondas before heading to Avignon. These AOC regions produce very nice Rhone wines. Along the drive, Pierre explained the differences in the regions and the styles of the wines, along with some history of the area. He will be our guide tomorrow as well when we explore the Chateauneuf du Pape region. We first tasted at Alain Ignace Winery, a small producer who is very serious about quality and inventiveness in his winemaking. After a delightful introduction to this region, we headed to lunch at Les Florets. It’s a hotel and restaurant set high on the mountain near the town of Gigondas. With the weather perfect we dined on the patio. The serene location was a perfect accompaniment to the delicious food.
We drove on to Gigondas, said to be the prettiest of the Mont Ventoux Cotes-du-Rhone wine villages. We tasted at Domaine Brusset, an old winery in a newly built facility full of new up-to- date technology and still working on the punch list. The wine maker was expanding his production and based on our tasting it was a good investment. We were then off to our final stop of the day at Domaine des Bosquets, still in the Gigondoas region. The winery is build on a hillside with a wide variety of soils and exposures. The winemaker was a young man who had designed the production facility so he could basically run most of the operation himself; we were impressed and had an enjoyable visit and tasting.
After a full day of tasting, Pierre dropped us off at our B&B in Avignon, l’Observance. The street was narrow and quiet, with a tall wood doorway right on the sidewalk. Our address, #2, was just a large blue door with a small sign “l’Observance.” We noticed a doorbell, pressed and voila there was the owner! We entered through a regular door inside a garage-size door to our bed and breakfast accommodation, built in the 14th century as a cloister near a small chapel. Later it was used as a factory and steel beams were added to assist moving heavy materials in the manufacturing process. The owners added a new modern wing, creating a dining room and additional guest rooms, along with a couple apartments across the driveway. There is a nice pool in the courtyard. Our room was in the old part, on the second floor up a wide stone staircase. It was spacious with a large bathroom and big windows. Our hosts are from the Netherlands, speak perfect English, and are welcoming and friendly. After a long day we turn in early.
Ready for our next day of wine tasting we are up and enjoy a nice breakfast buffet.
Pierre picked us up for our wine tour to Chateauneuf du Pape. As we drove he explained the history and geology of the area. Pretty surprising to know the Mediterranean sea went up what is now the Rhone river all the way to Lyon! We stopped in the vineyard, where he showed us the main soil types: clay, limestone, and river rock. The differences are remarkable, as the vines are planted in purely rocky ground, no dirt visible, unlike California where one just sees little bits of specific rocks amongst the soil. None of the vineyards are irrigated. He showed us maps of the area illustrating the Villages, Premier (First) Cru, and Grand Cru plots, and explained the strict regulations that apply to French wines and why they have been established.
Our first tasting was at Domaine Pierre Usseglio. The founder was an Italian immigrant who came from Naples who came to work in the vineyards, and after seven years he was able to bring his family to France. Working hard he saved some money to buy some land and eventually a winery. A son and two grandsons later, Usseglio is a great family operation.
We proceeded to Chateau-Sixtine, also a family run property where traces of the Diffonity family go back to 1653. This Chateau extends across 15 hectares, quite large for Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
We had lunch at a lovely castle styled hotel, Chateau des Fines Roches, again on a patio overlooking the valley of vineyards on a beautiful warm, sunny day. Next we tasted the wines of Domaine de la Barroche which features a variety of terriors, and a young wine maker. His prized wine is called Pure and was excellent.
We concluded our tasting adventure at Chateau de la Gardine, an estate with a historic castle and fantastic view of the Rhone river. We enjoyed tasting their highly rated Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine. After our last tasting Pierre helped us sort out which wines to select from our two days of tasting, and then arranged with a local wine shop to ship it to us. He returned us to our hotel for a little rest. We finished this full day with a very light dinner at Cour d’Honor, a very nice restaurant recommended by our B&B owner .
Wednesday we explored Avignon at our leisure. We toured the Palais de Papes (Pope’s Palace), the largest Gothic palace in the world. It is huge, and very interesting to see when and why the Catholic Church decided to move the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, and why it changed again. More impressive is how large their treasury was and the steps they took to keep their riches safe. It was not cheap to built the Palace, the summer Palace and fight all the battles! The area was controlled by the Roman Catholic Church even after the Pope returned to Rome. After the French Revolution, the people held a referendum and voted to leave Papal control and join France. We walked up the hill to Rocher des Dom hillside gardens, where we had lunch by a small pond with a fountain and ducks. Powered up after food, we walked to Pont St. Benezet, the famous bridge that now spans just halfway across the Rhone. Does anyone remember the the famous French song about the bridge? We walked backed to our hotel with a stop for a cold beer and enjoyed the cafe scene before dinner.
The final touch for our time in Avignon was dinner at Table Haute at La Mirande. La Mirande is a lovely hotel that had been the home of a Cardinal. We dined in the basement kitchen with 12 other guests, where we watched the chef prepare our meal. Below the kitchen level was the wine cellar where we began the evening with wine, locally made olive and tomato tapenade and local olives.We were fascinated by the cellar, storing hundreds of bottles of wine all with strong pedigrees. Back upstairs to the kitchen, we were introduced to our chef and began tasting her creations. The appetizer was sliced fresh figs topped with goat cheese mousse. Our chef artfully used a blowtorch to char edges of haricorts verts, which were topped with a lemon mousse and served with roasted sea bream. The main course was duck breast with roasted vegetables and mushrooms. The dessert was meringue domes, atop raspberry ice-cream and a fruit gelee, with whipped cream piped around and on top to create a surprise delight. Cooking all this for 14 people was an astounding feat, and she sang as she worked! After dinner we went upstairs for a drink with a young couple from Washington DC who both worked for the Federal government; the discussion was interesting but alarming as he worked for the Federal Election Commission, and she for HHS and dealt with the parent/ child separations mess. We let them know how much we support their efforts to uphold out democratic values and institutions.
Wonderful Avignon! The meal concluded after midnight, so we took a taxi back to our hotel and crashed, to be up in the morning to catch the train to Beaune.
Rob
2018-09-24
What a wonderful trip. Great photos of great scenery, food, and vineyards.
Brad
2018-09-25
I'm hopping a plane today! Where do I meet you????