Got up and had breakfast at the hotel. We were greeted by the owners' dog, Simba, who is a very cute brown and white part pointer part hound . He follows the inn-keepers around the dining room hoping for morsels left by travelers who don't finish their breakfasts. We took off around 10am to drive a wine tasting loop recommended in the Rick Steve's tour book we had brought along. We went out to Chateauneuf du Pape, which is a big wine producing area dating from when the Pope lived in Avignon. W wandered around the town a bit, walked up to what remains of the pope's summer home, and visited a wine shop where we tasted some very epensive wine and were entertained by a wine salesman who looked like George Clooney. We did not buy any wine since it was too expensive there.
On the way out of Chateauneuf du Pape, we stopped at one of the chateaux advertising a tasting room. Catching the proprietor just before he was to break for his two-hour lunch break, we tasted some excellent wines and actually bought one bottle to bring home. According to the proprietor, the tannens in wine increase for the first 13 years of a wine's life in the bottle, before the process reverses and it begins to mellow again leaving something very special. If the grapes were good to begin with, of course. This wine as a blend of 13 grapes; we'd also tasted one that was a blend of five grapes. Interesting item of note: in California, the discussion is around type and provenance of the grape. In France (or at any rate, in the Rhone Valley), it's about the blend. Very interesting.
We then went on to Orange, a few kilometers away, where sits the best preserved Roman theatre outside of Asia Minor. It was in very good condition there and still has performances on-going there today. Although now the theatre is not used for the same original purpose as it originally was in 80 AD which was the deification of the emperor and binding the Roman provinces together.
On the way out of Chateauneuf du Pape, we stopped at one of the chateaux advertising a tasting room. Catching the proprietor just before he was to break for his two-hour lunch break, we tasted some excellent wines and actually bought one bottle to bring home. According to the proprietor, the tannens in wine increase for the first 13 years of a wine's life in the bottle, before the process reverses and it begins to mellow again leaving something very special. If the grapes were good to begin with, of course. This wine as a blend of 13 grapes; we'd also tasted one that was a blend of five grapes. Interesting item of note: in California, the discussion is around type and provenance of the grape. In France (or at any rate, in the Rhone Valley), it's about the blend. Very interesting.
We then went on to Orange, a few kilometers away, where sits the best preserved Roman theatre outside of Asia Minor. It was in very good condition there and still has performances on-going there today. Although now the theatre is not used for the same original purpose as it originally was in 80 AD which was the deification of the emperor and binding the Roman provinces together.
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