I recently traveled on vacation to France, for research of course, visiting a few wine regions which were just amazing. We started our journey in Champagne visiting some amazing champagne caves dating back to the 1800's. One tour to Pommery, a well-known Champagne house in Reims, was very unique in it's art incorporation into the caves. In one section on the caves they had an room you walk into with guitars hooked up to amplifiers and then birds flying and creating the sounds as they landed on the guitars; it was very interesting and different for a "wine" tour.
After our adventures in Champagne we headed to the home of Riesling; Alsace! The region of Alsace, which borders Germany, is one of the most beautiful regions of the world. The countryside and the villages are very picturesque and the food and wine we consumed was some of the best we've ever had. We journeyed down the Route du Vin starting at the top in Marlenheim with an amazing dinner at Le Cerf, which I highly recommend. We then headed south down to Ribeauville, where we stayed in a great apartment above Domaine Sipp-Mack in a nearby town called Hunawhir, this is a great place and central located between Ribeauville and Riquewihr. We had a great visit with 12th generation family member, Pierre Trimbach, of Maison Trimbach. He showed us their facility and tasted us on many great wines, including a 375th Anniversary wine! We also ventured to Marcel Deiss and Hugel. Hugel had a 1991 Vendange Tardive that was delicious. Each place offers a different experience and by tasting and talking with the families you learn so much history behind the evolution of the vineyards and wineries. The history of French wine is incomparable to anywhere in the world.
After spending 7 days exploring the Alsace region we then headed to the land of Pinot Noir. As we drove into the Burgundy region the vines and soil were very different from what we had seen in Alsace. We drove down as far as the town of Beaune, where we stayed for 6 nights, exploring the countryside and visiting some amazing people. We had a tour with one of our barrel company's. It was very interesting to see how they handmade each barrel and to see the start to finish process done all by a line of 5-6 workers, it makes you appreciate what each barrel has to offer. We also had some great visits, one with Pierre of Domaine Henri Gouges, we were lucky enough to try his 2003 Pinot Noir down in his caves. We also got a once in a lifetime tour at Louis Jadot doing comparative tastings between bottled wines and wines still in barrel.
This is a picture of the what some of the caves give you to taste out of, it's how the Monk's used to do, don't worry I don't think Tolosa will be switching over...
All in all it was a great trip that I could go on and on and on about, but if you have any questions or are planning a visit to these regions in France I would love to help you if you need any advice. My advice is just GO! This was the best way to learn about the terrior and history of French wines and trust me the food is just as good as the wine!
Here is a picture of the 2007 Tolosa "No Oak" Chardonnay with the beautiful Burgundy vineyards in the background, it was very refreshing after a day of Pinot Noir.
Cheers,
Katie Noonan
In March, I took some time away from winemaking to travel to El Salvador as a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity’s ‘Global Village’ program. Kristin and I joined about 100 other volunteers from the United States, Canada, and Barcelona for a week of hard work, constructing simple, decent homes for people who need them.
