Wine Travel Guides Blog

News! All Wine Tour Content Now Free to View

October 30, 2009

We’ve made some major changes on the Wine Travel Guides website, which will benefit anyone planning a wine tour in France, Tuscany or Rioja and other regions we will add next year. All the contents of our 50 micro-region travel guides to wine regions can now be viewed free on the website.

There’s no catch here, but anyone who would like the convenience of downloading the guides as PDFs to plan their wine trip off-line and print pages as required, can purchase the guides at a very reasonable price of £5 (approximately US$8.50 or €5.50) with discounts for multiple guide purchases. A sample PDF guide can be downloaded on registration; for those of you who have already registered, do log in and take a look as we’ve changed the sample to the Southern Graves and Sauternes guide by Jane Anson.

We have also converted our former Gold Subscription to Gold Membership, which allows any of our guides to be downloaded for a full 12 months (meaning you get the latest, updated guide) including any we add in the future. The price has been reduced too – Gold Membership costs just £29 (approximately US$49 or €32). A package of member benefits is also planned, and these should include discounts on other valuable wine and travel related information.

In case you are not familiar with the content on our Guides, our micro-region guides are bite-sized chunks of major wine regions, for example, we have 8 guides to Bordeaux; 5 to the Rhône Valley; 2 to Tuscany (covering only central areas at present) and so on. Each guide (about 10 – 20 pages in PDF form) includes 8 – 12 recommended wine producers to visit; a few places to stay (ranging from top hotels to friendly Bed and Breakfasts); restaurants, shops and attractions, plus a useful aide-memoir of the regional wines including appellations, grape varieties and wine styles. A wealth of information in a small package.

Most importantly of all, our guides are written by a selection of top wine and travel writers, selected because they have the inside track on their regions – some you’ve already seen on this blog, others are also top-class, including three Masters of Wine and several published book authors. We also make a point of updating our guides regularly, once a year at a minimum with tweaks during the year as necessary.

There are no other travel guides to these wine regions which are as authoritative or comprehensive as ours available anywhere else on the web, so please visit the site and tell the rest of the world about our existence. The main idea of these changes is to open up our content to many more independent travellers who love wine. Increased visibility – and let’s be honest about it, revenue – will allow us to expand our guides to other countries and regions in the future.

Thank you for reading this blatant sales blog post. I felt that it needed to be spelt out as going from 60 pages to over 1500 pages of quality content is pretty big news for a website! I hope you agree and look forward to your reactions to the changes. I promise you that interesting wine and travel posts will resume soon!

Leave a Comment » | Updates on Wine Travel Guides | Tagged: PDF guide, Rioja, Tuscany, wine regions of France, wine tour, wine travel guides | Permalink
Posted by Wink Lorch

The French Giant Wakes up to Wine Tourism

October 12, 2009

By Wink Lorch

The Languedoc-Roussillon, also referred to as ‘Le Midi’, has long been known in France as a giant wine producing region, source of a mass of everyday table wines. But in the past 25 years there’s been an important revolution in the region, which continues today in a more urgent manner as sales of cheap and not-so-cheerful French wines decline both at home and abroad. There are now scores of wineries making excellent wines in the region, which stretches from Montpellier in the east to south of Perpignan and the Spanish border. The region has grouped all its appellation and Vin de Pays wines together recently for marketing under the Sud de France banner.

Mas de Daumas Gassac © Mick Rock

On a visit to the south nearly 20 years ago, I saw the first signs of wine tourism emerging in the region with visits to the California-inspired Skalli winery and the boutique winery Mas de Daumas Gassac; on a visit at the end of last month, I witnessed modern wine tourism in practice at Château l’Hospitalet. What impressed me two decades ago at Skalli was being able to walk through an immaculate working winery that was transforming what used to be undrinkable wine into perfectly pleasant varietal Vin de Pays wines. At Mas de Daumas Gassac, it was being able to tour the stunning vineyards with the inimitable owner, Aimé Guibert and then taste the wines with him in what I recall being a sweet little tasting room, complete with photos and soil samples.

Château l’Hospitalet is one of several Languedoc enterprises where wine tourism has been taken to a new level for France, one which I think is worth emulating by mid-sized wineries in many wine regions of Europe. Two things help Château l’Hospitalet: firstly it has a gorgeous situation nestling amongst 82 hectares (200 acres) of vines, which you can walk through to enjoy a stunning view to the Mediterranean, just 10km away; secondly, its owner is a giant of a man with great ambition, Gérard Bertrand, not just the son of a vigneron, but someone with contacts and influence in many fields, having proved himself first off the vineyard as a team player for the French national rugby team. Bertrand is a believer in both the quality potential of Languedoc wines and in the importance of wine tourism as a way of demonstrating to wine drinkers the connection of the land with the taste of the wines.

Château l'Hospitalet ©Wink Lorch

Bertrand owns no less than five wine estates in the Languedoc-Roussillon: Domaine de Villemajou in Corbières; Château Laville Bertrou in Minervois; Domaine de l’Aigle in Limoux, one of the highest altitude Languedoc vineyards, where Pinot Noir and Chardonnay both do very well; Domaine Cigalus, near Corbières, but classified as a Vin de Pays giving greater flexibility – this is where Bertrand lives with his family and he is currently converting the vineyard from standard organic viticulture to biodynamic methods; and finally the main wine tourism centre, Château l’Hospitalet, situated outside Narbonne in the Languedoc sub-appellation named La Clape after the small range of hills just in from the coast where it located.

Wine Writer, Oz Clarke with the Mediterranean behind him ©Wink Lorch

Wine Writer Oz Clarke in vines on the Mediterranean ©Wink Lorch

Two days of events put on for a British wine journalist/trade group including Oz Clarke, Giles Fallowfield, myself and a dozen others kept us busy with a couple of strenuous hours’ grape picking at Cigalus and several serious tastings where we sampled a large number of the better wines from Bertrand’s range. I was drawn especially to the Château l’Hospitalet La Clape wines, surely not influenced by us staying there, but you never know. The Château Hospitalet white in particular, made from Bourboulenc, Vermentino and Grenache Blanc was deliciously dry, with a freshness from the sea air perhaps, and herbal characters reminiscent of the Mediterranean garrigue (scrubland) surrounding the vineyards.

Château l’Hospitalet has a hotel, a restaurant, several craft workshops selling local goods and a large wine shop, where visitors can taste and buy the complete range of Gérard Bertrand wines as well as some local food specialities. Surrounded by the vineyards as well as acres of scrubland and pine forests, the recently renovated hotel makes an attractive and useful base for wine visitors. The modern restaurant and bar offer jazz evenings and there is a 3-day jazz festival with international stars each summer. L’Hospitalet is particularly suitable for groups too, for whom special wine seminars and events can be arranged.

Richard James, based in the region, knows much more about the region than I do and his six travel guides on the Languedoc- Roussillon will point you in the direction of the most welcoming Languedoc wine estates to visit. The region is well worth exploring as are the Sud de France wines.

Disclaimer: I was a guest of Gérard Bertrand at Château l’Hospitalet for a harvest weekend.

Leave a Comment » | Vineyard Visits | Tagged: Château l'Hospitalet, Gérard Bertrand, Languedoc, Mas de Daumas Gassac, Narbonne, Oz Clarke, wine tourism | Permalink
Posted by Wink Lorch

An unusual wine bar on the Canal du Midi

September 23, 2009

The French city of Toulouse lies between the wine regions of the south-west and those of the Languedoc-Roussillon and travellers to these wine regions may well start or end their journey in the city. Below, American Tom Fiorina, who lives close to the city and writes The Vine Route blog, shares a wine discovery that sounds well worth a visit.

Cale à Vins in Toulouse © Tom Fiorina

The Canal du Midi, the UNESCO World Heritage Site that was built in the 17th century to connect the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, is an engineering marvel. This masterpiece of structural and hydraulic engineering contains over 91 locks, several aqueduct bridges and dams, and the first canal passage ever built through a tunnel. The canal revolutionized the transport of goods across south-western France until it was made irrelevant by the railroads that replaced it in the late 19th century. Today, it is the most popular pleasure waterway in Europe.

One of the canal’s most scenic sections passes through the city of Toulouse. The plane-tree-lined canal passes directly through the city, allowing the private or rented boats that ply the waterway in the summer to dock close to the city’s museums and other tourist attractions.

As a Toulouse-area resident, I have not floated through the city on one of these long, low boats. I have, however, walked the shady former towpaths that line each side of the canal, creating attractive hiking and cycling routes. It was on one of those walks that I happened upon La Cale à Vins, a classic French péniche, the flat-bottomed river barges used to transport goods. I found out, when I spoke with the boat’s owner, André Fuster, that cale is French for a ship’s hold. La Cale à Vins is a play on words for the French name for a wine shop, une cave à vins.

Since the boat was built in 1920 it has been used successively to transport grain, as a floating library by the city of Toulouse, and by the international medical and humanitarian aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières. It went through the hands of several private owners in the early part of this decade, and following a two-year renovation it emerged as the Oenothilus, a floating wine bar/restaurant/wine shop. The Oenothilus, which specialized in the wines of Southwestern France, made a name for itself as a nice place to drink a glass of wine. From online reviews that I discovered on the Internet, I learned that the food and service seemed to not be up to the quality of the wine, and that the drop in business must have led to the sale, in February of this year, to Fuster.

He has revamped the wine menu so that it includes wine from all over France, along with a few from other countries. Fuster became an oenologist in 1998. He told me that his wine ‘epiphany’ was in 1990 when he tasted a premier cru from Puligny-Montrachet. This wine, he said, made him understand the difference between ‘wine’ and ‘plonk’. His six years working for one of the world’s leading providers of commercial yeasts and bacteria, when he travelled throughout France to visit vineyards, gave him his primary source for his 200-plus list of wines offered at the Cale à Vins. Fuster says that he knows each wine producer personally, and that, unlike most restaurants where you select the wine after having selected a dish, he would like his patrons to first select a wine. Using his first-hand knowledge of the wines that he sells, he can then suggest a dish from the menu.

Forty people can be seated in the inside dining area and on the fore and aft open decks, while a maximum of 120 people can be on-board at one time. Lunch is served Tuesday through Friday and dinner Tuesday through Saturday. The food consists of fresh local specialties – charcuterie from Corsica and Spain, foie gras from local producers, a variety of fresh fish, and cheese from the Pyrenees. The winter menu will include more hot dishes. Lunch will cost you, depending on your wine selection, between €15 and €20, while dinner is not much more expensive. The boat can be reserved for private parties as well.

Fuster, who speaks French and English, plans on having a different winemaker present his or her wine each Tuesday evening. His partner, in both business and in life, Nadine Moreau, is helping to organize these wine tasting sessions, which will begin in October.

The wine menu is the size of a textbook, with information about both the wine and the winemaker. From among the more than 200 wines on offer at the Cale à Vins, you’re sure to find, a wine that will please you. And once you have, the expert advice offered by Fuster will pair your wine choice with an equally enjoyable food dish.

The Cale à Vins is moored near the Toulouse city centre at Boulevard Griffoul-Douval, near the Passerelle des Soupirs foot bridge and the Port Saint-Sauveur. The telephone number is +33 (0)5 62 16 39 47 and additional information is available on their website.

Leave a Comment » | Places to Stay, Eat and Shop | Tagged: Canal du Midi, south-west France, Tom Fiorina, Toulouse, wine bar | Permalink
Posted by Wink Lorch

Visiting vineyards by Vespa and speaking Slovenian

September 10, 2009

By Wink Lorch

Everything seemed yellow on our first wine tour in Collio in north-east Italy, right on the Slovenian border. The sun shone brightly, some of the wines were curiously yellow and the Vespa parked outside our delightful agritourismo in the vineyards was bright yellow too! Unfortunately we were not on a leisurely trip, so we zipped around with four wheels rather than two in order to see as much as we could in a short three days.

Yellow Vespa waiting for wine tourists

Collio, part of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, is well-known to the inner circle of Italian fine wine fans as the source of the country’s very finest white wines. We were lucky that just before our planned visit we were invited to a launch of a new book on Collio’s wine and food by Carla Capalbo, an American living in Italy. This travel guide with a focus on wine and food provided incredible in-depth information, clearly presented and I would highly recommend buying a copy if you plan a visit there. Wine Travel Guides will add guides to this area soon and I’m very much hoping that Carla will be our specialist contributor.

The local Consorzio, who both govern production and promote the wines of Collio, want to encourage wine tourists and supported publication of Carla’s book whilst leaving her a free hand to write as she wanted. Providing a range of Vespas for tourists to rent is also the Consorzio’s initiative, along with plenty of leaflets and maps available in the growing number of excellent agritourismo accommodation, restaurants and, of course, winery tasting rooms that are dotted along the wine route. Incidentally part of the wine route also doubles as the cherry route – something that back in May we enjoyed at each breakfast!

The heart of Collio, around the town of Cormons, is less than a couple of hours east of Venice and we soon discovered it is in deep countryside with the Julian Alps often in view. The views from the wine producers we visited were of rolling hills with forests high up and vineyards with little villages below. For those not used to being in border country, it might seem strange to find that not only do many wine producers in this Italian land speak to each other in Slovenian (or a local Friulian dialect), but when they show you the view, they carefully indicate: “that village is in Slovenia, the few houses next to it are in Italy, the next village is Slovenia …” and so on. Collio is named Brda in Slovenian.

Vineyards in Zegla in the heart of Collio

The predominantly white wines are generally dry and full-flavoured from a range of grape varieties. Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio and Friulano (formerly named Tocai Friulano) are the best known, though there is good Chardonnay and classy Sauvignon Blanc too, along with a handful of curiosities, most notably Ribolla Gialla, which made in the traditional way with a long maceration on the skins (most unusual for whites) is positively yellow and delicious. Most producers also make a blend which is simply designated as Collio DOC and is often the top of their range. It’s a good thing these white wines are full-flavoured because the hearty local food might, on first taste, call out for red; but persevere and you’ll find the full-bodied whites match really well. My enduring memory of tasting with the wine producers is being served fabulous dried hams (notably from the famous producer Lorenzo d’Osvaldo) and salamis, plus cheeses with great bread and olive oil.

There are few towns of any great size in Collio, the most important being Gorizia (which also has a Slovenian sector called Nova Goricia). We enjoyed exploring the smaller town of Cormons, especially sitting down on a balmy evening outside in the main square for a couple of glasses of wine and a plate of food at the friendly Enoteca di Cormons. We were also told about a joyous wine and food street festival in Cormons that we missed by a day – Fieste da Viarte, which is held on a Sunday at the end of May.

Patrizia Felluga in her vineyard

Back on the food trail, we had a lovely casual lunch at Luka, a trattoria in the important wine village of San Floriano del Collio. Owned by Patrizia Felluga of the famous Felluga wine dynasty, Patrizia also owns her own winery Zuani, producing just two excellent Collio DOC blends, and is the president of the Consorzio. Together with our friendly agritourismo hosts, wine producers Savina and Renato Keber, we also had a fabulous evening out at La Subida, one of the most important restaurants in the region.

La Subida is more than just a restaurant, as they also offer accommodation, have an equestrian centre and an informal trattoria down the road. Eating a meal at the beautiful La Subida restaurant is a real event, in a relaxed environment, with excellent local food and a huge wine list: if you have the budget to splash out, you should definitely seek advice on the wines to choose from the sommelier. The quality of La Subida, of the local white wines and the warm Slovenian-style welcome combine to show that Collio is a real heartland of gastronomy, something that until recently has been perhaps restricted to those ‘in the know’.

Leave a Comment » | Places to Stay, Eat and Shop, Vineyard Visits, Wine Tourism General | Permalink
Posted by Wink Lorch

A wine tasting and a long lunch in the middle of France

August 18, 2009

By Wink Lorch

Red Menetou Salon bottle Testing out the insider expert advice on Wine Travel Guides is definitely one of the perks of my job. As a wine educator, I used to advise my students that by choosing top producers from lesser-known wine appellations, they would find better value than choosing a nobody from the well-known appellations. It’s no different with a wine tour, so when we wanted a stop en route to visit my sister south of Tours, we checked out Jim Budd’s guide to the Central Vineyards of the Loire and planned our Saturday.

We’d both already visited Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire (home to Pouilly Fumé and arguably one of the most boring ‘famous wine villages’ in France!), so we decided on a short visit to one of the more obscure Central Vineyards appellations: Menetou-Salon, Quincy or Reuilly. We selected Menetou-Salon for the simple reason that we could link up a visit and tasting at a family-owned domaine with lunch at an interesting-sounding restaurant.

Pierre Jacolin of Le Prieuré de Saint Céols was initially reserved and somewhat preoccupied as during Saturday afternoon and Sunday that first weekend of August, the Menetou-Salon producers were holding ‘Caves Ouvertes’ (Open Cellars), meaning that for once, visitors are welcomed for tastings without needing appointments and often side-events are laid on. The only wine estate in the village of Saint Céols, set in an large old Benedictine priory linked to the famous Cluny monastery, the Jacolins had invited several local artisans to display and sell their crafts, arts and foods. Last minute preparations under the supervision of Pierre’s wife Christine were underway while we were tasting. As so often happens when tasting wines with a producer, as soon as he realized from our questions that we were genuinely interested, Pierre gave us plenty of information along with the wines to taste.

The Jacolins' house in St-Céols © Brett Jones

The Jacolin range consists of two whites (Sauvignon Blanc), a rosé and two reds from Pinot Noir. As everywhere in the Loire’s Central Vineyards area, the whites made up the majority production from the domaine at around 70%. The slightly more expensive wine named Cuvée des Bénédictins was aged for longer on the yeast lees and bottled later giving a much deeper flavour and ageing potential than the ‘basic’ fresh and zippy white. Both the rosé and the two reds (the better one again named Cuvée des Bénédictins and this time, spending time in oak barrels) had longer maceration on the skins than most producers in the area give their Pinots. This gave more structured wines calling out loudly for food. After tasting a few older vintages, which impressed us greatly, we were offered a taste of a very different kind of drink – a Crème de Cassis made from blackcurrants grown on their family farm, and Pierre urged us to taste it neat, without adding any white wine to make a Kir. It was absolutely the most concentrated blackcurrant flavour I’d ever encountered and I could imagine it would be delicious over vanilla ice cream – we bought a bottle to try another day.

C'heu l'Zib Restaurant in Menetou-Salon ©Brett Jones

C'heu l'Zib, Menetou-Salon ©Brett Jones

As always, tasting made me hungry, so I was ready for lunch when we arrived at the restaurant C’heu l’Zib (Chez l’Zib) in the middle of the nearby village of Menetou-Salon. Apart from the food itself, the whole experience at Chez l’Zib (C’heu is the dialect word) reminded me of eating in the Italian countryside, though I suspect that decades ago there may have been more restaurants like this in France too. The warm, rustic interior is full of wood (including the trestle-like tables and rather uncomfortable school-like chairs), with decorations hanging from the ceiling and every piece of wall or beam, an open fire for winter and a bar in the corner. There is a cosy family atmosphere with strangers often sharing tables. Although a menu of sorts is displayed outside, there is no menu handed to you and you are expected to eat the menu of the day, which will include some choices. From most tables, you can see into the busy kitchen at the end where several women of all ages and one lone man bustled away. The restaurant was full this Saturday lunchtime with a mixture of locals and (French) tourists in the know.

Everything about the food is homely, simple, seasonal, regional and delicious. I started with half a melon (served completely plain) and Brett had perfect, rustic pork terrine. He followed with a classic of the restaurant, locally caught pike served simply in a typical beurre blanc (cream, butter and wine) sauce. I had tow magnificent slices of veal shin cooked in wine. Carrots in butter and simple roasted potatoes were served on the side. After, a big bowl of green salad and a cheese plate including several of the local goats’ cheeses were passed from table to table and replenished as needed. Dessert focussed on slices (however big you wanted) of a rich chocolate charlotte and there was a bowl of stewed plumss and another of marinated grapes. Phew! I feel full just writing this and to think that one option was to choose both the fish course and the meat course! The wine choice is even simpler: red or white, Menetou-Salon of course, from whatever producer they have around. You can have a bottle, a half-bottle or a glass …

Menetou Salon bottle sculpture © Jim Budd

Bottle sculpture in Menetou-Salon © Jim Budd

Our meal for two with a half a bottle of white and a glass of red plus a couple of coffees came to just 78 Euros. We had a slow walk around the village, inspected some badly hail-damaged vines (sadly 2009, the year in which the appellation celebrates its 50th birthday, commemorated by a bottle sculpture, has not been kind to Menetou-Salon) and then ambled off to the local woods for a siesta. Thanks to Jim Budd for recommending these gems in one of his five Loire guides.

By the way, in case you’ve not yet noticed, Wine Travel Guides is currently offering subscriptions at half price – only till August 26th. That makes the Gold subscription with access to 50 guides only £24.50 (approximately $42 or €30).

C’heu L’Zib, 2 Route des Aix d’Angillon, 18510 Menetou Salon
Tel: +33 (0)2 48 64 81 20 (No email, no website).
Open lunchtimes except Wednesdays. Dinner by reservation only except Wednesdays and Sundays.

Leave a Comment » | Places to Stay, Eat and Shop, Vineyard Visits | Tagged: France, Loire Valley, Menetou-Salon, wine tour | Permalink
Posted by Wink Lorch

Discovering the wines and vineyards of Trentino

July 20, 2009

Words and Photos by Brett Jones

Trento's main square

May is a lovely month to visit vineyards. The vines are burgeoning with life with fresh green foliage and the promise of this year’s harvest as the nascent grapes flower. A visit to Trentino in North East Italy is no exception: to the south of Alto Adige and to the north of the Veneto, it’s easy to reach from Verona and from Austria or southern Germany.

May is the month when the annual wine exhibition takes place in Trento, the capital city of the region. The streets are festooned with bunting and and the balconies sport cheerful wine drinkers, enticing tasters to attend this event which runs for three days in the middle of the month. In two venues, the Teatro Sociale and Palazzo Roccabruna, 60 producers present over 240 wines and grappas.

Trentino Expo collage

When we visited this year we found the Palazzo was regal and the Teatro, well, theatrical with the auditorium and the stage taken up with wine laden tables and a great variety of local wines to taste and discuss. Many of the producers or their representatives spoke English, and were delighted to answer questions and listen to comments. This event is a great opportunity to discover Trentino wines and learn more about them.

Whilst in Trento we had the chance to visit Cantina Ferrari as well as Cantina La Vis. Founded as a winery in 1858 and developed into a cooperative in 1948 it is one of the largest producers in the area. It now has 1300 members and 1400 hectares of vineyards which are at an altitude of between 250 and 800 metres above sea level, with 80% of vines being on hillside or mountain slopes.

Its star vineyards must be those between 800 and 1000 metres altitude, around the limit of vine growing in Trentino. This spectacular area, to the east of Trento, is approached up through hillsides carpeted with vineyards with great views over the Rotaliana Plain.

logo_cembra

Once over the brow of the hill into the hidden Valle di Cembra you are greeted by a totally different view with vineyards tumbling to the left and right below, most of which are planted on the right bank of the river Cembra. Here the soil is very stony, full of porphyry, which is neither deep nor fertile. Müller Thurgau and Pinot Noir grow here where the manual work is very hard and difficult, but the wines produced have a fine purity.

Valle di Cembra vineyards

There is another reason to visit this special region. In the heart of the Valle di Cembra is the Maso Franch.

Relais Maso Franch

An old farmhouse set amongst the dramatic vineyards of Valle di Cembra it was stylishly renovated by the new owners, Cantina la Vis, into a 12 bedroom-Relais hotel with what is now a one Michelin starred restaurant, run by the locally celebrated chef Markus Baumgartner and his family.

The rooms at Maso Franch are very comfortable, the restaurant is a gastronomic treat with fine food matched by an excellent wine list. The lovely city of Trento is down the hill and you can explore the region by travelling on the Trentino Wine Roads; for some relaxation, Lake Garda is 45 minutes to the south.

May is an ideal time of the year to visit this beautiful area, not least because it is quieter than in the height of the summer, with the added bonus that the weather can be sunny, but not too hot.

Leave a Comment » | Wine Tourism General | Tagged: Cantina le Vis, Italy, Trentino, Trento, wine fair | Permalink
Posted by Brett Jones

Getting up close and personal with Priorat

July 6, 2009

By Sue Style

Beady-eyed wine travellers can hardly have missed the meteoric rise of Priorat’s blockbusting, terroir-driven red wines, characterised by their intensity, complexity, longevity and eye-watering prices. But how many of you have travelled in the comarca or county of Priorat, about an hour southwest of Barcelona? It’s a stunning area, well worth a detour – well, make that a special trip.

Scala Dei at the foot of the Sierre de Montsant © Mick Rock/Cephas

Scala Dei at the foot of the Sierra de Montsant © Mick Rock/Cephas

Hilltop villages alternate with steeply stacked vineyards, terraced olive groves and medieval monasteries. All shelter beneath the majestic, jagged, dramatically stratified Sierra de Montsant, set in its own National Park. The terrain is fiercely challenging and dauntingly steep, vines grow in the distinctive, brownish-black llicorella shale that glints and shimmers in the merciless summer sun.

There are two appellations here, DOC Priorat and the larger DO Montsant, which almost entirely surrounds it. The Priorat appellation was created in 1954, but vines have grown here since the 12th century when Carthusian monks established their monastery Scala Dei – God’s staircase – at the foot of the Sierra de Montsant. In 2000 the region was promoted to DOC, one of only two DOCs in Spain (the other is Rioja), with around 1700 hectares of vineyards planted predominantly with old Garnacha and Cariñena (a.k.a. Grenache and Carignan) vines, plus some Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot.

The Montsant appellation emerged from under the umbrella of DO Tarragona to establish itself in its own right only in 2001, with around 2000 hectares of vines. Garnacha and Cariñena predominate, with a little Tempranillo (known here as Ull de Llebre, ‘eye of the hare’); Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot are also approved.

In response to all the excitement on the wine front, a new wave of wine-led tourism has spawned some great little country restaurants and rural B&Bs, many of them in historic houses which have been restored with Catalan flair and a nice respect for the fabric of these fine old buildings.

Perversely, Priorat (and to a lesser extent Montsant) can be a bit frustrating for the wine traveller. Many of Priorat’s wines (especially cult wines like L’Ermita, Clos Mogador, Clos Erasmus, Clos de l’Obac) are impossible to find, and the top wineries are open to visits by professionals only.

This is where the Fira del Vi, held in the regional capital of Falset, comes into its own. Held every year over the first weekend in May, it’s a showcase for both appellations, gathering under one roof a representative range of Priorat and Montsant growers and providing a unique opportunity to get up-close-and-personal with both the wines and their makers.

The Fira is a shop window only: you can’t buy here, only taste. Potential customers are directed either to the winery (some of which offer scheduled visits during the fair), or to one of the wine shops in town (try Vinateria Aguiló).

Apart from the fair itself, there are all kinds of wine-related fringe events in restaurants, shops and other venues in town and in the surrounding villages. Make a note in your diary for next year and build the fair into a week’s exploration of this superb, ruggedly beautiful area.

PLACES TO STAY

Mas Figueres, Carretera T-300, Km. 2, Marçà
Tel: +34 977 178 011
Cal Porrera, Escoles 4, Porrera
Tel: +34 977 82 83 10
Cal Llop, De Dalt 21, Gratallops
Tel: +34 977 83 95 02
La Siuranella, Rentadors, Siurana
Tel: +34 977 82 11 44

PLACES TO EAT

Quinoa, Miquel Barceló 29, Falset
Tel: +34 977 830 431
Celler de l’Aspic, Miquel Barceló 31, Falset
Tel: +34 977 831 246
Irreductibles, De la Font 38, Gratallops
Tel. +34 977 262 373
Restaurant Siurana, Major, Siurana
Tel: +34 977 821 027

Leave a Comment » | Places to Stay, Eat and Shop, Wine Tourism General | Tagged: Barcelona, Catalonia, Falset, Montsant, Priorat, Spain, Sue Style | Permalink
Posted by stylebettlach

Lisbon for Wine Lovers

June 16, 2009

By Jane Anson

There was something reassuring about seeing a pair of Lisbon down-and-outs clutching bottles of half empty 10-year old port. It was good to see that in the capital of Portugal, even its most economically-challenged citizens were enthusiastically embracing the country’s most famous product.

I didn’t sample any actual port during my recent weekend in the city, except for some wonderful white port and tonics before lunch at the Cafe Martinho da Arcada, and then while listening to Fado music at a club in Alfama on Saturday night. I was in Lisbon instead to check out the Portuguese still wines, and there was no shortage of opportunities to do so.

Lisbon is packed full of wonderful areas – perhaps Balem, where the Portuguese explorers set off to discover Brazil and other distant lands in the 15th century, was my favourite, along with the traditional Alfama district in central Lisbon, particularly experiencing its steep slopes while riding the famous Tram 28. But all over the city there was a range of traditional and new wine bars, wine shops that offered tastings, and even home-grown wines in some of the hotels.

The first hotel that we stayed in, the Jeronimos 8 by the monastery in Balem, has its own Buçaco Palace wine that has been described by Hugh Johnson as one of the top 100 in Portugal. That was written some years ago; Portuguese wine has improved drastically in recent years and I’m not sure that this would still make the cut, but it was still very interesting. The vines are located around the Buçaco Palace Hotel, one of the other hotels in the small group.

There are also a number of excellent wine bars to try including:
Chafariz do Vinho – lovely traditional building, good choice of wines (all chosen by award winning wine writer João Paulo Martins) and tapas.
Os Goliardos – bar/restaurant in Bairro Alto that also offers very good wine courses and tastings of wines from across Portugal and Europe.

For more about Lisbon for wine lovers look at the Catavino website – they are co-organisers for the European Wine Bloggers Conference to be held in Lisbon in October 2009.

Finally, if you plan a visit to the wine regions near Lisbon or elsewhere in Portugal, don’t leave home without an essential book: The Wine and Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal by Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter.

Leave a Comment » | Wine Tourism General | Tagged: Catavino, EWBC, Jane Anson, Lisbon, port, Portugal | Permalink
Posted by Jane Anson

Drinking but not Driving with Ferrari

June 10, 2009

By Wink Lorch with photos by Brett Jones

On our recent wine tour in Trentino in north-east Italy we had the chance to visit the cellars of the famous Metodo Classico sparkling wine producer Ferrari. After a cellar tour and a rather special tasting of their wines, we were given not only a guided tour of an extraordinary 16th century villa owned by the Lunelli family, owners of Ferrari spumante, but also the chance to eat at their fine dining restaurant in the hills. Certainly we felt like we were in the fast lane of life in Italy.

Ferrari spumante was founded in the city of Trento by Giulio Ferrari in 1902. His family owned vineyards and he had been trained in wine production at the local prestigious San Michele all’Adige agricultural school and later in Montpellier, France and Geisenheim, Germany. He also spent some time in Epernay, Champagne and thought that Chardonnay would be ideal to grow on the high altitude limestone hills of his home area in Trentino, so he smuggled in some vines.

From the start Giulio Ferrari aimed to make high quality spumante using the Champagne method, today known in Italy as Metodo Classico. Until the 1950s production remained highly limited (less than 10,000 bottles a year) and much in demand all over Italy, but with no successors Giulio finally sold the company to Bruno Lunelli, who ran a successful wine shop in Trento and had long been an admirer of Ferrari Spumante. Giulio continued to work in the firm until his death in 1965 aged 86. The biggest change Bruno Lunelli made was to increase production to create a viable business and the company has never looked back. Today Ferrari spumante remains owned and run by the Lunelli family and produces nearly 5 million bottles of Metodo Classico sparkling wine.

The current offices and three hectares of cellars are on the outskirts of Trento and are open to visitors. The reception area is quite sumptuous with a wonderful display of pop art-decorated Ferrari bottles and a shop where you can buy period posters and other related artefacts as well as the wines of course. If you’ve never visited a Champagne house then the visit through the cellars is well worth it – it’s usually available with an English guide if you are prepared to wait a little while, though always better to make an appointment.

All the sparkling wines under the Ferrari label are Trentodoc – the name developed for Metodo Classico wines from the Trento D.O.C. and Chardonnay is the dominant grape variety. We tasted their excellent non-vintage 100% Chardonnay Maximum Brut which has three years on yeast before disgorgement alongside its rosé partner from a blend of 70% Pinot Noir base wine made as rosé with 30% Chardonnay. Both had lovely freshness and delicacy with the rosé ideal for food as was proved later that day. The Perlé vintage 2004 (again 100% Chardonnay) was a tremendous wine with elegance joined by roundness and real length. As we were part of a group of British wine educators, we were honoured to be given a taste of the latest vintage of their single vineyard Giulio Ferrari Riserva del Fondatore 1999 produced in very small quantities only in good years: it was mature, spicy and sumptuous – and has been described as “one of the four wines that have changed the story of Italian wines.”

Joining us to taste the Giulio Ferrari was Franco Lunelli, one of Bruno’s sons. Marcello Lunelli the oenologist commented “my uncle always turns up when we open this wine”, but Signor Franco Lunelli, now in his 70s worked hard for his share. He was our knowledgeable guide around the extraordinary Villa Margon owned by the family and set in parkland in the hills a few kilometres above the winery. The situation and the collection of buildings including an 18th century chapel are simply beautiful in themselves, but it is the actual villa and the art that it contains that is the highlight of a visit here. It was built in 1540 by the Basso family, who had purchased the land from the Bishop of Trento. The villa became a summer retreat for prestigious guests travelling through Europe, including cardinals and other church dignitaries, and it is believed that Emperor Charles V was a guest too.

Between 1540 and 1560 artists were invited to the villa from Belgium and from Venice to paint frescoes on the walls and these have never been restored. All the rooms of the villa are adorned with these allegorical and historical frescoes, which remain in amazingly perfect condition with colours so bright that experts continue to debate what materials must have been used to paint them nearly 500 years ago. The frescoes in one room illustrate the battles in which Charles V was involved; in another they are devoted to bible stories from the Old Testament and a further room has stories from the New Testament. My favourite room had 12 frescoes each representing the typical activities occurring in one month of the year. At least three were wine related with March showing the pruning, August preparing the barrels for the new harvest and September illustrating the harvest itself. Two months that amused me were January showing the men playing cards whilst the women work in the kitchen and December which was the shopping month – prospecting for wood amongst other purchases. For further insight, check out this recent visitor’s blog post.

Close by on another side of the hill the Lunelli family have opened a restaurant Locanda Margon, which now has one Michelin star. In a beautiful setting above the Adige valley, but only a few kilometres from Trento, it would make a fantastic summer evening’s excursion and the food we experienced was high class country food, beautifully served.

Over lunch, Matteo Lunelli, another family member working in the company explained something that had intrigued me, namely whether there was any relationship between Cantine Ferrari spumante and Ferrari Maranello, the car company. Matteo told us that that Ferrari was, along with Rossi, one of the most common names in Italy – the equivalent of Smith or Jones, so it was crucial for both companies to protect the use of the name commercially. The two companies are good friends and Matteo explained that they were “two expressions of luxury lifestyle”. Some years ago they came to an agreement giving Cantine Ferrari the exclusivity of the name for the world of drinks while Ferrari Maranello has the exclusivity for all other products. When Ferrari wins at a Grand Prix race, the team always celebrate with Ferrari spumante.

A perfect wine tour day should include all these things: interesting cellar visit, great wines, a superb meal, good views and some sort of cultural experience. Thanks to Ferrari you can get these all, close to a major city too.

Contact Ferrari via their website to arrange a visit to the cellar or to Villa Margon. Villa Margon is open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays, plus a few special opening days.

8 Comments | Vineyard Visits | Tagged: Ferrari spumante, Italy, Trentino, Trentodoc, Villa Margon, wine tour | Permalink
Posted by Wink Lorch

Group Wine Tour vs Private Wine Tour: Pros and Cons

May 20, 2009

There are many differences between participating in a group wine tour and organising your own private wine tour whether you are a professional in the wine business or simply a wine lover. Recently I’ve had a few occasions to ponder on the pros and cons of the group wine tour versus your own private wine tour (by which I mean a tour for just yourself and partner/friends, say, up to 4 people without any professional guide for the trip) so here are some thoughts to share with you.

Note that the points below apply mainly to the choice for wine lovers rather than professionals though many apply to the latter too. I have presumed that this concerns a wine trip with a reputable wine tour specialist. Also, I should say that my thoughts apply particularly to trips in Europe and are not necessarily geared to buying wine. Please do add comments to this debate.

Group Tours – The Pluses
• No advanced planning – just book and go.
• Someone to drive you around.
• Someone who speaks the local language and can interpret.
• Possibility of visiting certain difficult-to-visit wine producers who only accept visitors on a strict appointment and limited basis.
• Possibility of tasting older vintages or special wines that aren’t opened for individual visitors.
• The price is fixed in advance, often an all-in price.

Group Tours – The Minuses
• An enforced group situation possibly with strangers!
• Usually impossible to adapt or change the itinerary.
• Often slower visits, meals etc as there is a need to cater for everyone.
• Bus travel – not everyone enjoys this.
• Difficult to have access to speak directly with winery owners/winemakers.
• Often impossible to choose where and what you eat.
• Expense of the tour due to organisation/guide/transport.

Private Tours – The Pluses
• Free to plan your own itinerary, often at the last minute.
• Complete freedom to adapt part way through.
• Travel at your own pace in your chosen form of transport.
• Travel with the people you know and like!
• Visit small wine producers that can’t accept groups.
• Can often chat directly with winery owners and winemakers.
• Eat in small restaurants that don’t take groups.
• Work to your own budget – choose whether to spend more on food or accommodation.

Private Tours – The Minuses
• Usually requires a lot of planning (but many enjoy this part!)
• One person nearly always has to drive a car.
• Can’t necessarily get access to visit very famous wine producers.
• Possible language issues if you don’t know a word of the language concerned and are not very confident.
• Budget is not so easy to control.

A few weeks ago I was a guest on the weekly wine podcast the New Wine Consumer where we debated this very subject – you might want to listen. The consensus was that private wine tours win in most cases providing that you have a willing driver (someone prepared to be rigorous at spitting out the tasting wines or abstain) and that you are confident enough to tackle just a few words of the local language of your chosen destination, however basic. With reference to the wine regions of France, we also talked about whether or not you need appointments to visit, something we note for all the wine producers recommended in Wine Travel Guides.

I look forward to your thoughts in the comments. Happy wine travels!