Wineries/vineyards question
 

Planning a trip to Provence, maybe also Loire Valley, and may drive through Burgundy on the way south and the Dordogne on the way back north. Sounds too ambitious I know, may make cuts later. Anyway, do you have to call ahead or be part of a group to stop at a winery? Do they have tasting rooms one can drop in on as CA and OR do?

It varies. The larger vineyards and of course the cooperatives may have tasting rooms that are fairly well-staffed. Most mere-et-pere vineyards will not, but you can ring the bell and if they're not too busy, they'll be happy to have you come for a degustation and the chance to sell some wine.

For super-high-end vineyards (a la Romanee-Conti), you'll need an appointment and you'll probably need to know someone. . .

When I was in the Loire I found that wineries that welcome tasting visitors have a sign "degaustation". Some were very small and took you out to a tiny place in the back where the #1 son would pour for you. It was loads of fun. Also, there are lots of storefront tasting rooms where you can go taste several wineries wines.

In Burgundy most wine producers are small, and they like you to make an advance appointment to taste. However, in Savigny-lès-Beaune one of the châteaux on the main road has a nice big tasting room, and in Beaune there are several. And I remember that in the village of Aloxe-Corton there was a little tasting room on the main street.

However, in the Rhône Valley and upper Provence there are quite a few places to taste; the one in Gigondas is right on the town square. In Vacquéras we saw two right along the road to Vaison-la-Romaine, and near Châteauneuf-du-Pape there are a number of small producers who welcome visitors. They won't necessarily speak English, but it's easy to indicate that you want to taste. One owner we visited actually climbed up on top of his vats with a pipette to draw several vintages for us to sample, and when we bought a bottle wrapped it up nicely in purple paper and presented it to us with a bow. The larger wineries in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape regions have good tasting rooms.

The large supermarkets and hypermarkets are excellent places to buy wines at good prices. Sometimes they even offer tastings.

Wineries vary in their dégustation style. Some are clearly oriented to having quite a few visitors at the same time, and tasting and walking out are not a problem. At others, often smaller wineries, you may be the only visitors, there may be a language problem, and there is a sense that you are expected to buy something, often more than a bottle or two. At least that was my experience in the Bergerac area.

I always buy from the small vignerons.

Especially if they are older gentlemen who give me bouquets of sweet almond blossoms.

Thanks all. The wine and food are my bribe to get my husband to make this trip! Actually I don't think I've ever seen him in a tasting room without buying some wine.

In our somewhat limited experience with vineyards in Burgundy and Bordeaux, at the smaller vineyards, we also sometimes faced a language issue, and definitely felt an obligation to buy (not so easy an obligation to fulfill if you have to cart the bottles around with you on the rest of your trip - and even harder if it's during the summer and you have to worry about the wine getting too hot). Stopping at some small place with a sign "degustation" in front can be great to go with a picnic lunch, though! The obligation to buy was not so much the case with some of the bigger vineyards. On the other hand, my husband (a huge wine buff) has had some wonderful conversations with owners/employees at caves and vineyards in France. What I'm calling a cave is a wine store that sells wines from several vineyards, and also offers tastings of the wines. You may enjoy visiting caves more than wineries/vineyards.

I feel that visiting vineyards in France (or Italy) is NOT real similar to visiting wineries in the Napa Valley, where many of the wineries have showrooms and a big deal is made of the thousands of visitors that come to taste (and buy). But there's enough to do involving wine and wine tasting to successfully bribe your husband!

Any rules about bringing a bottle of wine back to your room? I assume they don't have ice buckets in smaller places -- is that right?

You probably won't find many ice buckets even in larger places, as there aren't ice machines--and the teeny trays of ice in the minibar would get lost in a bucket even if there were one. So chilling a bottle of white wine can be a problem. What we've done is take with one of those wine collars that you put in the freezer and then put around the bottle to chill it; the collar usually fits in the freezer part of the minibar. When we're out in the country with a car we pick up a small cooler and buy ice as we go--not always easy to find, however.

Great idea. My husband says we have an insulated wine sack we could take with the little blue ice thing one can freeze.

I can't speak for the other areas you mentioned, but here in Provence you basically have two sorts of wine-tasting options. First is the wine cooperatives - many villages have them and they are well set up for tasting - much like you'd find in Napa. The quality can run from very good to OK. Our grapes, for example, go to the Cote Ventoux co-op in Apt - they have a pleasant tasting room, nothing exceptional, but pleasant.

The second option is to head to individual wineries. The quality of the wine is usually very good to excellent, depending on the appelation. The advantage, here, for visitors is that many are located in gorgeous settings - beautiful old chateaus for example. So you get to taste wine and do some sight-seeing all in one go. For example, nearby us in the Luberon is the Chateau de Mille (Bonnieux) and the Chateau Val Joanis (in Pertuis) which has an extraordinary garden you can visit as well. Outside of Aix you will find a number of 17-18th century Bastides which are now running wineraries and open to the public for tasting and buying. Just to name a few: Chateau Simone, Chateau de Seuil and there are many more.

A friend (who is much more of a connoisseur than me) is going to help me put together a list of places to go winetasting: our criteria - great wine and above all, a beautiful setting.

If you are interested, email me and I will send you a copy when it's done (hopefully mid-April).

Take care,
Kevin

Kevin, Thank you. I printed out this thread so will have your e-mail. Don't be surprised if it gets buried on my desk for a bit and you hear later!