As we exited the train at our stop in the northern Rhône valley (a town called Tain l’Hermitage), I immediately felt more at home. Something about being in a small gorge, surrounded by steep hills covered with vineyards felt familiar. And the architecture felt more Italian (or Californian, your pick), with frequent stucco buildings and tile roofs.
Although Ancestry.com’s DNA test told me otherwise years ago,
I have always felt a strong pull and connection to the Mediterranean, especially
Italy and Greece. While I have thoroughly enjoyed being a visitor throughout
France the past couple of weeks, as we get closer to the Mediterranean, I find
myself feeling like I am coming home to a place I’ve never been. It just feels right.
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| We still had our suitcases with us from the train station when I declared, "This stop is my favorite!" |
So despite an achy back that sidelined me a bit, I absolutely
LOVED the northern Rhône valley. So much so, discussions are already underway
about ways we might return to explore it in more depth. It is breathtakingly
beautiful, friendly, approachable, and much easier to grasp than Burgundy. It
looks like French wine county, with a river and bridges and castles and
grapevines climbing hills that should really only be accessible to mountain
goats.
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| Rhône River looking north |
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| Red poppies, vineyards, old church PERFECTION! |
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| By law – and physics – all grapes are harvested by hand. There is NO room for heavy equipment! Or much of anything really. |
Our stay in the northern Rhône allowed us a bit more free time than the rest of
our tour. In fact, we had one day completely free – the only such day on our
itinerary. Probably because it was a Sunday and France refreshingly sort of
stops on Sundays (except in large touristy places like Paris and Champagne). It seems to be a day of strolls and sips and laughs and
family. Many businesses are closed and the pace is just slower. It’s quite
lovely. I think the French might be onto something.
During our three days in and around Tain l’Hermitage, we wandered through a Saturday market, took in the vistas from a castle tower, hiked into a vineyard, did a little shopping, tasted some great chocolate, and discovered some wonderful wine. This has been an incredible trip and yet this was my favorite stop so far.
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| France shuts down between 12:30pm and 2:00pm every day. This pop-up market was but a memory by 1:00pm. |
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| The hill across the river is an appellation called Hermitage. It is small but special due to the steep south-facing slopes. We were in an appellation called Saint-Joseph for the photo op. |
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| More room for equipment here, but still hand-picked grapes. |
Before I talk about the wine, a few words about chocolate.
Tain l’Hermitage is home to a chocolate company called Valrhona
established in 1922. What a fun surprise! Rob and I had heard of Valrhona – and
even got to sample some of its premium chocolate – thanks to a dear friend of
ours. Donna followed up her career as a US Navy Nurse to become a Chocolate
Laboratory Instructor at Hershey’s and is now a freelance chocolate expert
offering super fun in-person and online chocolate classes (YES! SHAMLESS PLUG!
Donna is awesome! Check her out here!). Rob and I did one of her classes via
Zoom during an anniversary trip on the Oregon Coast a few years ago. A week or
so prior to our class, Donna mailed us some chocolate samples, including a
sample of “gold” chocolate from Valrhona. It was a wonderfully weird white chocolate
that was yellowy blond in color and tasted like toasted marshmallows. I
remember it well because I got to taste it again very recently at the Valrhona
factory!
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| "Cocoa Paste" is also called "Cacao Liquor." Either way, it is SUPER bitter. As much as I like dark chocolate, I only ate a pinky fingernail-sized chunk of this, making faces the whole time. |
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| MUCH better! This is "gold" or "blond" chocolate. It was accidentally invented by a Valrhona chef in 2012 when he left some white chocolate in a water bath for too long. |
I love chocolate so I’ve been on a few chocolate tours over the years. I must say, Valrhona’s tour was a whole new level of interaction and tasting. Most food tours make you learn about stuff before you get to sample it. They want you to know how it’s made, where it’s made, why theirs is special, blah blah blah. Well, the Valrhona folks are kind, benevolent, generous people who know you are there because you want to eat chocolate. So just a few steps into the exhibit, you have the first of ten – yes, 10 – free samples to taste. But they don’t just give them to you. They have these super cool dispensers that are activated by your entry ticket.
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| The machines are smart enough to keep track – only one sample per ticket. Click here to see a short video! |
At various displays, as they talk about different types of chocolate or different parts of the chocolate-making process, you scan your ticket to get a little square to taste. Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, blond chocolate, chocolate from South America, chocolate without any sugar added (the "cocoa paste"), chocolate before it has been ground down and smoothed out. It was a self-guided tour that let you taste and learn at your own pace. It was brilliant! And delicious! And lots of French people – some quite a bit older than me – were gleefully bouncing from one dispenser to another gathering up “free” chocolate squares like it was Halloween. It was so fun! As was the “boutique” gift shop afterwards. YUM!
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| Pain meds and chocolate onboard! |
Yes, but what about the wine?? Oooh, SO good! Let’s start with a map.
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| The town in the middle called Montélimar is about where the boundary is between north Rhône and south Rhône. |
The Rhône valley is a north-south valley in the southeastern
part of France that runs about 150 miles along the Rhône River. The river
eventually ends up in the Mediterranean Sea. There are over 50 appellations
in the entire valley, 8 of which are in the northern part.
Our wine education consisted of visiting two tasting rooms plus a lunch with wine pairings. We also enjoyed some snacks and wine at our hotel. Everyone was super friendly and helpful and proud and excited to share their wines with us. It was casual, informative, and so fun! Here’s what I learned.
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| Our guide showing us a rock from the area and talking about the "minerality" found in the whites. That is a term used often in discussing white wines. I'm thinking I need to wash and taste a few rocks when we get home to really understand what it means. Yes, I'm serious! And clearly in deep... |
The northern Rhône has just one red grape – Syrah – and three
white grapes – Marsanne, Roussanne, and Viognier. There’s only one appellation that
makes Viognier (the area called Condrieu), so for the most part the whites are
just Marsanne and Roussanne, and sometimes a blend of them.
Marsanne is a much heartier, more robust grape than Roussanne. It’s easier to grow and work with. As a result, there are more 100% Marsanne wines in the northern Rhône than 100% Roussanne wines. However, there’s no French rule insisting that the winemaker tell you what grape your northern Rhône wine is made from (really, French Government?? ALL your rules and THIS is not one of them?? Merci a whole bunch.) So you either have to know, ask, guess, or take a chance when buying a bottle of white wine from the northern Rhône valley. Or not care and just enjoy the mystery!
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| Yes, we tasted all of these! And yes, I made use of the dump bucket despite how good they were! |
The Viogniers we tasted were so fun!! We’ve had Viogniers at
home. They are most distinctive because they smell like flowers and taste like
lemon juice (VERY generally speaking). The smell and the taste don’t match at
all, so it can be super fun or super annoying, depending on your mood and
expectations. The Viogniers from Condrieu, though, were not like this! They smelled
like apricots and tasted like watery lemonade with apricots floating in it.
Trust me, they were SO GOOD!
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| Not much left of the lightly yellow Viognier! And if we had had kids, we would have been the couple in the background. |
The northern Rhône reds – all Syrahs – were a gorgeous deep purply red. Each time one was poured in my glass, I couldn’t not say, “OH! That’s so pretty!” They were a bit lighter and fruitier than versions we have had in the United States. I enjoyed all of them except one, which we suspect had been opened too long and we got the last of the wine in the bottle (telltale sign: a bunch of sediment in our glasses. I asked about it and was simply told they do not filter their wines. If I had purchased the glass of wine, I would have asked them to please replace it with wine from a newly opened bottle. Yes, it’s ok to do that.) Among our descriptions as we tasted along the dark, richly colored Syrahs: black currant, blackberry jam, ham, Easter dinner, diluted Mountain Berry Kool-Aid, shortbread cookie with a blackberry jam spread, tomato pasta sauce, cherry tomato, asparagus, canned green beans, peppercorn steak, and cranberry juice. Fascinatingly, one red I had with my pesto ravioli lunch was an amazing pairing (recommended by the server). The bright fruitiness of the Syrah actually complemented the vegetable herbiness of my pesto really well! Left on my own, I would have paired it with a white and had a totally different taste experience. Wine is SO FUN!
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| Doesn't that look delicious?? I'm finding I'm not a huge fan of the heavy French sauces and dishes found in the northern and central parts of France. SUPER happy to be heading south now! |
As much as I have loved our time in the northern Rhône, I am excited to head even further south. And, as enchanting as our historic 18th-century-mansion-turned-hotel has been, it has killed my back with such short furniture and low fixtures and lack of flat surfaces in the bathroom. Yes, first-world-travel problems. Thank goodness for wine and chocolate! And train tickets!
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| They called this a snack. I called it dinner. Either way, the furniture is adorable and painful. |
1 comment:
I had a Gris de Toul once, a rosé described to me as "flinty". It tasted like rocks, yes.
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