Maussane, Provence, France

The wine trail starts at Maussane, at least for us.  To work up a thirst, we are going to the market.  Maussane is about 2km from the house.  Again it takes longer to find a parking spot than to drive there.  Market day in this village is a big deal, everyone comes out, it is a place to be seen, squeeze some fruit, try the free samples and enjoy the noises.

The French are not loud, they speak in hushed tones.  One bit of advise, when you approach their stalls you must say Bonjour.  Nothing will happen, and I mean nothing until the greeting niceties have been concluded.  You could offer to buy the entire table of goods, they will not acknowledge your presence without the Bonjour!

This takes the whole buying process a little longer to transact.  The lines of stalls are full of buyers, each one in turn must go through the greeting ritual to the seller's satisfaction.  Sometimes, this involves a discussion regarding health issues or coffee, the neighbours etc....  It could take awhile and it does.  Such is market day.  The produces are quite simply out of this world.  My mouth is watering just thinking about the cheese, the bread, the charcuterie, even the veg looks perfect.  The butchers. there are three of them, each have their own 30 foot trailer.  One side completely opens to reveal a fully refrigerated environment for the meats.  Think of your gourmet butcher at home, but on wheels.  Impressive.  The market also has food stations to eat a  variety of local dishes.  Seafood Paella is a top seller.  We bought tonight's menu than headed for the wine country.

Provence has 7 appellations within its boarders.  There are 346 vineyards in the 7 appellations.  The Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence is the the area we are in.  There are only 48 vineyards in this appellation.  We are going to do them all today! Then explode.  Seriously, our goal is to stop at 4 this afternoon.  Our first is a small production family run organic vineyard and olive oil farm.  It is called Mas de Gourgonnier.  We sampled their Olive Oil followed by a Rose, a white and a red.  The Rose was a big hit, we bought it for tonight's dinner.

Mas de Gourgonnier above and below.

About 2 kms down the road, or more accurately, path was the Donaine d'Eole.  About 8 miles from Saint Remy de Provence, we stumbled on this vineyard by mistake.  I, once again was not listening to the GPS and turned before  I was meant too.  Good for us.  This vineyard had some interesting wines.  Is is rated among the top 20 vineyards in the region.  Impressive when you consider there are 300+ wineries.  We were also lucky enough to experience the tasting with the winemaker, Matthias Wimmer, as our guide. We had the Rose, excellent, a sparkling Rose, excellent again.  A white, very nice and two very impressive reds.  A purchase of the Cuvee Tradition Rouge was made.  Matthias spent a great deal of time with us explaining the process of making organic certified wines.  The benefits of the soil and the mistral winds in keeping the vines healthy.  Speaking of healthy, Matthias pours a very nice taster.  We thanked him for his time and made our way to Chateau Romanin.    

Matthias defines the terroir to Johanne

 Can I have more Please?

 Chateau Romanin

A very high tech wine tasting experience.  All the bottles are in a vacuum pouring system. The tasting room is built directly above the cellar.  This 250 acre vineyard is built within the ruins of a 13th century Templar Knight's castle.   We didn't see the ruins, we did, however taste some great wines.  The reds would rival much of the Cote Du Rhone wines.  A very good stop.

Next was intended to be Chateau d'Estoublon but we spent too much time at the last two vineyards so we ran out of time.  We decided to go there for lunch as they have an excellent restaurant as well.  More to come on that in the days to follow.  In the meantime we arrived in Saint Remy de Provence and just had to stop and look around.  An enchanting village.  This is where Van Gogh finished his life, completly broke (both mentally and financially). I will let the pictures tell the story.

There was free entertainment and tasting of pates and dessert that day....

I know we will be back here again, so I will talk more about this perfect little village then.   In the meantime, we have wine to drink.

Avignon and Le Pont du Gard are next up.

Be Well

A votre sante!