The Road to Tavel

Tavel is a wine distric in Southern Rhone north and west of Avignon. It is well known for its rose wines..some say the best in France and the world. The wine is made from a combination of the many grape varieties grown here ..grenache, syrah, cinsault,mouverdre...and that is enough for you to get what I mean. The Nova Scotia Liquor Commission carries no Tavels and the LCBO in Ontario maybe about 6-9. Lucky Ontario.  The French here in Provence love their roses and we are starting to see why...they are remarkably inexpensive...10.50 euros a bottle was the most expensive we could find...and even in a restaurant they run about 18 euros a bottle ...but then wine in restaurants is a great price compared to Nova Scotia.
Roses come in a wide range of colours from pale pale pink to a hearty strawberry colour...they can be very aromatic which is what we like and have great fruit on the palate..strawberry..raspberry..some even with a little grapefruit. They are great as an apertif or with the whole meal...we have very much enjoyed drinking them here..mostly from the Luberon area.. so it was going to be an adventure to head to Tavel and see what we could find. We also hoped to get to Lirac..the adjacent community also known for its roses. The way we have been devouring time that seemed like a full day. We had made a reservation at the restaurant we wanted to eat at called La Physalis.. through a booking engine they were using called Fourchette which was very easy..we have found that you really do get better treatment if you reserve. The reservation was for 1 Pm which meant we had lots of times to take the backroads through the countryside..our preferred way of travelling. The route would take us through Chateauneuf de Pape, the beautiful, again. Last Thursdayb was a holiday here and we were taking a bit of a chance that the wineries would receive us but oh well you have to take some chances..haha!
I cannot say enough how beautiful it is to go through CN-de-P..and  I kept thinking what if this was my  "hood"  ..you know where you go to the store or pick the kids up from school and this was where you drove every day..over there Beaucastel or the Vieux Telegraph. Where everyday you got to see those rolling hills of vines and the change in the vines... even since we have been here  we can see big changes..lots of leaves and the flowers are taking shape..and looking like little bunches of grapes.
After C-de P...we hit another little town we like called Bedarrides where the Ouveze River parallels the main street. Most days when we have gone through and even stopped to walk the river, it has been very quiet with the usual sleeping dogs and old men sitting on the corner cafes.. but today we were  startled to have the  road leading in to the town lined with small horse carriers..hundreds of them. There was even a detour so we could not cross the bridge.In the distance we could see all the horses lined up on the main street and it looked like a big fair. We found a parking spot and decided to check it all out. And what fun!

There were so many horses and vendors selling saddles and other horse  equipment..horses were being groomed and judged.. there were ponies and small horses and mules.And country music with folks in country shirts and cowboy hats dancing...line dancing and square dancing..all things American western style. And then there was a parade which we just happened to be right in a great place to view.

They had folks dressed in togas on chariots representing the Roman use of  horses and horses that ploughed the fields... and kids on horseback... and on and on.

But now we were running late and we had better get going to make our lunch.

 

We were greeted  very well at the reataurant.. the owner..wife of the chef loved the name Wildsmith and explained how she thought  Bruce might be of Bruce Willis fame..disguising his name haha...we ordered a bottle of Tavel and were quickly told we had picked a supreb wine made just around the corner. And it was!!!

The wine was of the darker coloured roses and was aromatic and flavourful..strawberry..and was smooth as silk in your mouth.And how easy was that.. after a fantastic meal of fish and liver... I had the liver.. Bruce hates it and when I see it on a menu I go for it...not like pub liver and bacon.. we set off to find the winery and the vigneron and taste the wines and see if with linited French we could pursuade  the owners to sell us some.

Here is my liver and a shot of the rose in the glass.  You can see I hope how dark this rose is. Bruce is still talking about how this for him was an ah haa moment as far as roses are concerned

 

The winery was called Domaine Moulin la Viguerie...a viguerie was a justice in the days of the old Duc system in France and this winery had been in the hands of this family for many centuries...since the 16th century. The owner today is a young man by the name of Gael Petit...who was most gracious and spent several hours with us

out in his vineyard showing us his many plots... what a great afternoon we had and  serendipitously found a remarkable wine which will be at our home this summer... and here is the vigneron ...Gael Petit