So many wineries, so little time….
First, our friends found a list of wineries in the area (appellation) — Coteaux-Languedoc — which included addresses for the wineries. That’s not to say the addresses, even the towns, were correctly listed in the book…..
Then, if we happened to find a specific winery, who’s to say where the caveau (tasting room) is…. It may be at the winery, but more than likely it is somewhere else.
Then the map may not be precisely correct, either…. Fun time was had by all. The harvest was just starting so many of them were bustling with activity.
One afternoon we did more sightseeing and drove to Grotte des Demoiselles. This is a large cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites. Here’s a view from just outside the entrance to the cave of the valley looking south.
Here’s a view of the mountain holding the cave (looking north from the same spot as the photo above).
And some views from inside (who knows what direction I was facing…).
One day whilst vegging out in Montpellier we all went mushroom hunting in the hills. While we didn’t have much luck in finding appropriate mushrooms to eat, we did have a good time traipsing around the hills.
The terrain in that area is called ‘garrigue.’ I can’t think of a good translation for it, neither could our friends living there…. Think of southern Montana. Fairly rocky, scrub oak trees, some deciduous trees.
We did find an interesting rather old rock wall. I think it was actually a field as it was completely enclosed. It surrounded about 3 – 4 acres of land.
After we drank our fill of French wine and ingested enough bread and cheese for a family of four for a month, we decided to head home. Besides, we couldn’t pack any more wine into our suitcases. Another great idea from the wineries in France is the distribution mechanism of table wine. Why go through the bother of bottling the wine into glass bottles? Why not just allow consumers to fill their own containers with wine on a periodic basis? Hmmm.
Many (all?) of the wine cooperatives dispense wine in this manner. The dispensing unit looks very similar to a large gas pump with nozzles for each style of wine produced by the coop. The locals can bring their own containers to fill with wine as they wish. Now that’s civilized! I seriously thought about stuffing 6 or so of these 5 liter containers of table wine in my bike case — who needs a road bike in the winter in Minnesota?!?
Before we flew home from France we spent some time in Carcasonne, which includes an ancient walled city — La Cite. La Cite is actually a working, thriving (tourist trap) city. Of course we had to visit some wineries along the way…..
La Cite by day:
La Cite’s back yard:
La Cite by night:
Well, that’s about it. I hope everyone enjoyed our little vacation to the south of France. If I could only find a job in the French Alps…….