Our wine quest leads us to check out exactly what the “Bélvédère de Pierre Aiguille” sign means…and we wind up going on une petite ballade to a little precipice.
Wow. There maybe no wine up here, but the view of the Rhône river is pretty amazing.
My intrepid travel companion Paul takes cave divining into his own hands. “I’m just gonna walk in and ask if they have any wine.” Not a bad idea, actually- but we were coming up dry.
Soon enough, we start to find our way to actual wine tasting. As it turns out, there are many drunk jovial wine purveyors who are happy to let you drink their work and talk to no end about wine and whatever else is on your mind. No problem if all you can say about the wine that you are tasting is “c’est bon”. I don’t pretend to know the first thing about wine.
Even better is when they let you into their cellars to try the stuff that is still in the barrels. Maybe some of you wine snobs have already done this a thousand times over, but I found this whole experience very cool. I also liked how I was not driving and could swallow most of what was poured into my glass.
And Monsieur Dumaine let me pretend to be extracting a sample from the barrel. He was extremely personable, and his lack of photograph framing skills make me question his sobriety. What a great job this guy has. And I am very jealous of Paul, the Olmsted scholar who is going to university right nearby this region. Lucky bastard.
This is Fidèle, the awesome dog from the Chave cave. loved this dog probably more than the wine that I bought. The proprietor said that she was bought as a truffle hound, but had never found a truffle in entire life. She was instead overly friendly, and not a guard dog.
Just so long as I don’t get arrested, my friends don’t get arrested, and I continue to seek out culturally enriching aspects of this trip, I will have called this month of travel a resounding success.
God I miss being a sixteen year old living in the south of France….the times were just too damn good.