Category: Places to Visit

The Middle Ages always had an attraction for us when we were kids.  Knights, damsels in distress, jousts and big feasts in castles halls just seemed so wondrous.  Robin Hood, El Cid, and Joan of Arc were our heroes and the Sherriff of Nottingham was the evil villain.  Later in life, Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt (both the Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branaugh versions) thrilled us yet again.  If you were anything like us, you ought to take a trip to Carcassonne when you’re wine tasting in southwest France.

Carcassonne viewed from afar.  Photo courtesy of European Waterways.

As you drive up to the town, you’ll see this magnificent walled city on a hilltop.  There is a modern-day town surrounding the castle, but it’s of no particular interest.  It’s the imagery of battles and courtly love that will rush back into your mind as soon as you see Carcassonne.  And it’s real.

Well, almost real.  There was a walled town there in the Middle Ages and it did figure in some significant battles, particularly in the Albigensian Crusade, that pitted the Papacy versus the Cathars.  (The Pope won.)  But by the early 1800’s, the town and its castle had fallen into disrepair and was going to be torn down.

Then along came Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.  He was a French architect, a visionary and someone who must have had the same childhood fantasies we did.  He set about restoring great medieval buildings, not least of which was the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.  When he turned his attention to Carcassonne, he took what was still a military stronghold and turned it into a Middle Ages wonderland.

The lovingly restored Basilique de St-Nazaire.  Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

For today’s visitor, there’s no reason to concern yourself that Viollet-le-Duc wasn’t exactly archeologically correct in restoring Carcassonne.  If what we see today isn’t exactly as it was, it is what it should have been.  Soaring walls, towers with arrow slits for the archers, tessellated ramparts, inns (well, they’re really restaurants) where you can quaff your ale (or enjoy a glass of wine).  They’re all there in Carcassonne.

Entry to the old town is free, but parking isn’t.  And if you get there at any reasonable hour, you’ll find the nearest empty lots are quite a walk away.  Of course, that gives you the chance to approach the great walls and turrets slowly and take them in at leisure.  Once inside, you’ll find a whole town’s worth of genuine medieval buildings, buffed up and gleaming.  Unfortunately, you’ll also find the usual run of shops selling knickknacks, tee shirts and junk.  But you’ll also encounter bookstores with a considerable collection of material on the Middle Ages and the events that have occurred around Carcassonne.  Many are in French, but enough are translated to keep you interested.

You can walk the walls of Carcassonne.

We recommend that you pay the fee to tour the walls around the city.  It’s not too hard to imagine hordes of English troops approaching from afar and the sturdy Carcassonais defending their fortifications.  By the way, those enemy troops might also have been French, because Carcassonne was part of Spain in medieval times.  You should also see the Basilique de St- Nazaire, begun in the 11^th Century.  It’s fine gothic architecture, suitably embellished by Viollet-le-Duc.

If you ever dreamed over Prince Valiant on a Sunday morning, you’ll love Carcassonne.

 

 

Due east of Rome and across the Adriatic Sea you will find the small, historic city of Dubrovnik.  In its long-past commercial heyday, it was a colony of the Venetian empire.  There are still many Italian influences in its architecture and cuisine, while the language is most definitely of Slavic origin.  It was a popular tourist destination in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, welcoming travelers such as Lord Byron and Agatha Christie.  War and ethnic rivalry kept visitors away until after the Second World War, and even then a trip to Tito’s Yugoslavia wasn’t everyone’s idea of a good time.  With the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s, Dubrovnik suffered terribly from Serbian attacks.  It was only with peace that the “Pearl of the Adriatic” was (re)discovered.

The main square of Dubrovnik

Most visitors are attracted to Dubrovnik’s Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site.  This was where the Venetians reigned and it still has vestiges of Venice, without the canals.  There are a few squares, some grand and some petite.  Most of the Old Town is in a narrow valley between a small hill on one side and a really steep one on the other.  The streets are narrow and packed with tourists following guides with their ubiquitous flags and umbrellas held high.  We understand that the streets are impassible in the summer.  Even in cooler weather, there are many visitors.

Dubrovnik’s harbor, with a portion of the walls.

The most renowned monuments in Dubrovnik is the first that you see when you approach the Old Town, the medieval walls around it.  These are as much as 25 meters (around 82 feet) high and more than a mile around the town.  Visitors can tour the walls but be prepared to climb 25 meters of stairs to get there.  Still, there are many pleasant sights and vistas all around the town.

Of course, where there are walls there must be gates, and there are two into the Old Town.  You get to cross an actual drawbridge and consider how difficult it must have been for attackers to breach the city before artillery and airpower.  Once inside, there are more than enough shops and restaurants to keep visitors occupied for days, though there is a limit to how much octopus, squid and Plavac Mali wine anyone can take.  Many of the restaurants are on narrow streets on the hillsides.  It can feel cozy or claustrophobic, depending on your outlook.  We particularly enjoyed the ones that had a view of the harbor.

A view of the coast of Dubrovnik.

There is another aspect of Dubrovnik that should not be overlooked.  It is a coastal city with excellent beaches and paved promenades that run along the cliffsides.  Many Europeans consider it more of a resort town; they have enough history where they come from.

The promenades are not made for dedicated hikers.  They are well paved and lit at night.  But they are for those who enjoy seeing natural beauty.  It is possible to go down rather vertical stairways to sit on the rocks on the sea.  We preferred to stop at wine bars along the way and look at the sea from above.

Continue reading Dubrovnik

You can find great wine bars around the world, as Power Tasting’s irregular series on such places evidences.  But in Italy, in Rome in particular, bars called enotecas fill a special niche.

Around Italy, especially in towns in wine making regions (which is most of the country) you’ll find wine stores offering degustazioni, or tastings.  These are primarily meant for the tourists; you almost never see local people in them.  The idea is to pour a little of four or five wines in order to entice potential buyers to come inside to purchase some bottles.  That’s not the same thing as an enoteca.

Likewise, there are plenty of bars, in Rome and elsewhere.  There you can get a Scotch or a glass of wine.  Italians don’t just drink wine; they too like a stiff one every now and again.  But these bars are not enotecas, either.

Outside a typical enoteca in Rome.

The real thing is a wine store with tables and a list of wines by the glass or the bottle.  There are tables and often some food to eat, but they are not really restaurants, either.  The menu is more for snacks and sliced meats and cheese, not complete meals.  People do sit at the tables to drink their wine, but just as many take their glasses outside to mix and mingle with their friends.  Tourists are not made to feel unwelcome, but more attention goes to the customers who will be back tomorrow, and for years after that.

Hanging out inside a typical Roman enoteca.

Enotecas fill the spot in Roman lives that pubs do for Londoners.  Yes, alcohol is involved and people do choose specific enotecas based on the wines they serve.  But more often, the local enoteca is just the place they go because it’s close and, well, everybody else is there.

In many restaurants, we have found a predilection for serving wines from the local region.  Some enotecas have wine lists that constitute an education in Italian wine.  Most enotecas have wines from all over the country.  Of course, quality differs from place to place, but for the most part we have found that most enotecas serve wines that are reflective of their grapes and terroirs.  Thus, you have everything from a northern Lagrein to a Sicilian Nero d’Avola (and everywhere in between) available to you and most are quite drinkable if not the very best of their sort.

When foreigners arrive in an enoteca, they are marked as tourists immediately because they consult the list of wines by the glass.  The regular clients seem to have the list memorized and, moreover, they know that they want the Verdicchio or the Montefalco because they always want the Verdicchio or the Montefalco.  We have found that if you act like you are guests in someone else’s house (or bar), the servers are quite friendly and willing to help you select something to your taste.

And then there’s the matter of price.  Enotecas are, at least to those of us who are used to the cost of drinking wine in American bars, ridiculously inexpensive.  It is rare to find a glass of wine priced at more than 10 euros (around 11 US dollars at current rates) and most run between six and eight euros.  And the pours aren’t skimpy, either.

So when in Rome, do as the Romans do.  Stop by an enoteca.

As you drive into the town of Béziers in Southwest France, you’ll see signs welcoming you and announcing that you’ve arrived at the “world capital of wine” (capitale mondiale du vin).  Now, this claim may be contested by the people in Bordeaux, Montecino or Napa.  But it is fair to say that there’s a lot of wine made in the area around Béziers, in the heart of the Languedoc region, although even there Narbonne and Montpellier have a claim.

The town certainly has a lot of history.  Researchers say that it has been occupied since 575 BCE.  The Gauls lived there; the Romans conquered it; and it was considered to be a part of Spain until well into the Middle Ages.  In the crusade against a heretic branch of Christianity, the Cathars, it was sacked and nearly destroyed in 1209.  Béziers’ position along the Mediterranean made (and still makes) it a center of trade and so it sprang back to life.

The entrance to the Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire.  The townspeople have decorated Béziers with colorful hanging lampshades.

Visitors today can still detect some of the ravages of that war.  The Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire was re-erected afterwards and still dominates Béziers’ skyline.  The entrance faces a pleasant square but most of the building is on top of a cliff and is unreachable.  That’s because the conquerors didn’t trust the people of Béziers and re-built the cathedral to be a fortress if need be.  Fortresses tend to be fairly gloomy inside and this church is no exception, but we recommend a coffee or a glass of that Béziers wine on the square by the cathedral, where you can admire the architecture.

If you’re in the mood to see other churches, we recommend the church of the Madeleine, where the people of Béziers were massacred in 1209.  You can still see some of the scars of the battle on the exterior but the interior has been renovated since then and is more attractive than that of the cathedral.

Assuming that you’re interested in other things than churches and grisly history, such as food and wine, we do have some recommendations.  For one, visit the grand covered market, Les Halles de Béziers.  As a visitor, you may not be able to cook everything, but you can bring home some canned cassoulet or some herbes de Provence.  We always enjoy a little of the region’s succulent fruit that we munch as we go along.

There are wonderful bistros everywhere in Béziers, but the area to the west of Les Halles is packed with them.  Our experience is that it doesn’t matter which one you choose.  They all serve the same local specialties and they’re all good.  And of course you can wash your food down with some Languedoc wine, which is wonderfully inexpensive.

The Vieux Pont and the Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire.  Photo courtesy of the Telegraph.

Be sure to see the Vieux Pont (old bridge) when you leave town.  Erected in the 12^th century, it’s a sight in itself.  And from there you can admire the entire town, with the cathedral looming over everything.  We guarantee, you’ll want to take pictures.

 

As you travel up the Napa Valley, you drive through several small towns, including Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga.  They are charming, but they are generally one main street, four or five blocks long, that feature restaurants, tasting rooms and galleries.  They are not small cities.  But at the bottom of the valley there is the town of Napa.  With a population of nearly 80,000 people, Napa is a small city with all the plusses and minuses the term implies.

The view from the Napa River.  Photo courtesy of Hotels.com.

Napa has a distinct downtown of about thirty square blocks.  Unlike the other towns mentioned, there is a definite urban feel to Napa.  At one time, not so long ago, there wasn’t much to interest the visitor.  Those days are long past.  Today there is a vibrancy there that owes a lot to wine tourism, of course, but also to some civic decisions to make the town more attractive to visitors.  Alas, this has resulted in nearly impossible parking near places you might want to go, although valets and large parking lots have eased the situation.

In 2015, we wrote about wine tasting at Napa’s in-town tasting rooms.  The overall tone was, well, less than exultant.  There weren’t many places to go and the quality was spotty.  At last count, there are now about thirty places in downtown Napa where you can have a tasting.  We haven’t visited all of them by any means, but we can say that there are some fine wines to be tried there.  Some of the better known labels are Alpha Omega, Buena Vista and Mayacamas.

The Oxbow Public Market.  Photo courtesy of Candlelight Inn.

We have written before about the Oxbow Public Market.  It falls somewhere between a tourist attraction and a local food and wine resource.  A bit away from the downtown area (or maybe now an extension of it), the market is certainly worth visiting, both for wine tasting and dining or both together.  And the views of the city are superb.

Napa is the seat for the county.  Therefore, there are all the public services there such as the county government, police and fire departments.    In that same vein, it’s where you will find doctors, dentists and barbers.  It is unlikely you will need them and they aren’t among the reasons for which you would visit Napa, but it’s good to know where they are, just in case.

Much of the renaissance of Napa Town has been led by the restaurants, of which there are many.  We have long had our standbys, including The Bounty Hunter and Cole’s Chop House.  We also like to experiment with new places, and as with all experiments sometimes we have been happy and sometimes not.  As with much of California, there is a large Mexican population in Napa, so there are now several Mexican restaurants.  In fact, as you drive into town along Soscol Avenue, you will see truck after truck selling Mexican fare.

If you are touring Napa Valley, you ought to include some time in Napa Town.  As we have previously counseled, it is often a good idea to avoid Route 29 on weekends and spend time doing in-town tastings.  For that, Napa should definitely be on your list.

 

We have a weakness for old grocery stores that have metamorphosed into gourmet shops serving the wine tasters who have flocked to Wine Country.  There’s Lombardi’s Love Lane Market in Long Island’s North Fork.  We can remember when the Dry Creek General Store was a place to buy work clothes, tins of nails and sandwiches (served only on sliced white or whole wheat).  We still mourn the demise of the Jimtown Store.  The grandaddy of them all is the Oakville Grocery on Route 29 and the Oakville Crossroad in Napa Valley.

Photo courtesy of Destination Wineries.

There’s an Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg and it’s a fine shop.  We go there when we’re in Sonoma County.  But the real deal is located, of course, in Oakville.  According to their website (https://oakvillegrocery.com/) there’s been a store at that spot since some time in the 1870’s.  At various times it specialized in dry goods and farming supplies; then it was called Oakville Mercantile.  Since wine lovers (re)discovered Napa Valley in the 1970s, it has supplied excellent lunches to visitors and locals alike.

Oakville Grocery’s story has intersected with the wine trade over the decades.  Prohibition almost put them out of business; only nearby bootlegging saved the store.  It hosted a Great Chefs cooking lessons program run by Margit Mondavi, the wife of Robert Mondavi.  For many years, beginning in the 1970s through 2003, Oakville Grocery was owned by Joseph Phelps, who also owned one of Napa Valley’s great vineyards.  It t is now owned by a Frenchman, Jean-Charles Boisset, whose roots are in Burgundy’s Côte d’Or.

Photo courtesy of Oakville Grocery.

Today – and for as long as we can remember Oakville Grocery – it specializes in upscale fare.  There’s an espresso bar where you can get freshly ground coffee.  There’s a selection of imported and local cheeses, with California’s products standing up quite well against the French and Italian imports.  Freshly made salads are available, as are hand-made pizzas fired where the hardware was once stored.  This being Napa Valley, they also have  a great wine selection.

But the main attraction is the deli counter which occupies almost the entirety of the middle of the store.  Yes, you can get a ham and cheese, but why bother?  You can do that at home.  There’s a California-fied Muffaletta, the glory of New Orleans reinterpreted for the wine folks.  How about a hot Chicken and Gruyere or Rocky’s Reuben?  A word to the wise: The sandwiches are enormous, enough for sharing.  It’s important to put food in your stomach if you’re going to continue wine tasting in the afternoon, but there are limits.

There is a (mostly) shaded area next to the store where you can eat and drink your purchases.  They try to style it as a picnic area, but there is neither grass nor trees to be seen.  Make sure to get a table in the shade – midday in Napa Valley gets quite hot – but don’t plan on lingering.

We know places in New York and Paris that are as rich in history as in cuisine.  The Oakville Grocery is one of these too, but it is a great deal more rustic than those places, as it should be.  This is a deli in Wine Country, after all.  But if you’d like a great meal in a place your great-great-grandparents might have frequented, then the Oakville Grocery is for you.

Route 29 is the main drag of Napa Valley’s portion of Wine Country.  Parallel to it and a few miles to the northeast is the “other” road, the Silverado Trail.  There are plenty of wineries to visit along the Silverado Trail, many of which are counted among the best in the valley and some among the best in the world.  But there are no restaurants nor any place even to buy a sandwich.  There’s no train track carrying diners nor is there as much traffic, although it gets a little busier at what passes for rush hour in Napa Valley.

Photo courtesy of Great Runs.

The Silverado Trail begins in the town of Napa, where it is mostly residential and becomes of interest to wine tasters only when it crosses over Trancas Street.  At that point, for about four miles, the Oak Knoll AVA is on your left, while the wineries on the right exist in a sort of limbo, identified only as Napa.  Since several of the wineries on that side are quite renowned, such as Darioush and Signorello (still rebuilding after the 2017 fire), it doesn’t seem quite fair.

The Trail then passes through the famed Stags Leap AVA (on both sides of the street), where it would be easy to spend a day or two just going from winery to winery.  You had better like Cabernet Sauvignon there, because that’s what this area produces in great quantity.  Because of the proximity of the wineries and the generally flat lay of the land, there are quite a few visitors who bicycle this part of the Silverado Trail for their tasting experiences.

The Yountville AVA hosts the Silverado Trail for just a short distance with only one winery of note, before the road enters Oakville.  There are several wineries there, but they are well separated from each other.  The same may be said for the stretch in the Rutherford AVA.

The Silverado Trail is more extended in the St. Helena AVA, where the distance to Route 29 narrows.  The AVA with the longest section of the Trail is Calistoga, where the road finally peters out.

Photo courtesy of Destination 360.

This abbreviated tour belies the attraction of the Silverado Trail.  It runs along the foot of the Vaca mountains and has far fewer wineries to visit than Route 29 or the cross roads between the two.  As a result, the wide expanses of greenery, sometimes vineyards and other times just mountainsides, make it a pleasure to drive along (or to bike, so they tell us).  There are few stop lights from one end to the other.  The absence of significant traffic enables you to just motor along and enjoy it all without stopping and starting all the time.  And you can even make a left turn if you have to.

If we are going somewhere on Route 29, we generally use the Silverado Trail to drive north-south and then cross over when we near our destination.  It is both easier on the eyes and on the nerves.

Power Tasting is not in the business of restaurant reviews, so this is not a restaurant review.  Yes, Gott’s Roadside is a restaurant but in its way it’s a great deal more.  It is definitely a place to visit if you are going wine tasting in the northern end of Napa Valley.  Gott’s is an institution.  Now, an institution might seem a bit stuffy, but this one definitely is not.

As you drive along Route 29 into St. Helena, you can’t miss it there on your left.  It’s a big white building with lots of parking and seating all around it.  There’s quite a history to go with it.  Originally, it was known as Taylor’s Refresher, established in 1949 by Lloyd Taylor.  At that time, Napa Valley was mostly planted with fruit trees not grape vines, and the clientele must have been largely farmhands and truckers.  It was an unapologetic burger joint that, as we remember it, was a place to get a quick meal but not a destination.

In 1999, Mr. Taylor’s heirs sold the restaurant to the brothers Duncan and Joel Gott.  Together, they were entrepreneurs; Joel was an is a winemaker as well as a restauranteur.  (Duncan has since passed away.)  They kept the name, Taylor’s Refresher, until 2010 when they changed it to the current name.  They also significantly expanded the place.  The Taylor family was a bit upset that their name was being lost, so it seems that the settlement was to change the name but keep the old sign.

Gott’s is still a burger joint, but in keeping with “Napa Style”, it’s somewhat fancier than that.  The beef is Niman Ranch.  There are salads, tacos and sandwiches as well; we have no idea how they taste because we’ve only ever ordered hamburgers.  And what kind of burger joint has a wine list?  For some legal reasons, Joel Gott’s wines aren’t served there anymore.

Part of the reason for eating at Gott’s Roadside is to be able to say you’ve eaten at Gott’s.  It’s the same reason people have their pictures taken in front of the Eiffel Tower – to prove they’ve been there.  There are some excellent restaurants just up the road in St. Helena, but none of them have the retro cachet of Gott’s.  You’ll be able to say “yes” when friends ask, “Did you have lunch at that famous burger place?  What’s it called again?”

Another reason, a better one in addition to the food, is to partake in a tradition with all the other folks dining there.  Part of the seating area is under canopies next to the parking lot and there is also a grassy picnic area where families gather; kids run around; and there’s a general sense of fun.  Just eating there makes you feel like you’re a part of Napa Valley, not just visiting it.

There are now Gott’s establishments in other locations.  Don’t be fooled.  They’re just restaurants, not pieces of Napa Valley history.

 

Champagne is the world capital of sparkling wine and Épernay is, in wine terms, the capital of Champagne.  Épernay has been destroyed in various European wars, particularly the Hundred Years War, and then it was badly damaged in both World Wars of the 20^th century. The city as it is today exists because of sparkling wine.  It was only in the early part of the 18^th century that the makers of what is now the world’s most famous sparkling wine started settling in attractive city mansions there.

The Avenue de Champagne in Épernay

For the visitor today, there are a few attractions worth seeing, but the reason to be in Épernay is to sample some of the products of many of the most famous Champagne houses…as well quite a few others that are not as well known.  And the best place to get to know them is along the Avenue de Champagne.  Along this one kilometer street that runs from the Place de la République to the Mercier winery with its impressive tower, you can stroll along, tasting as you go.  Beneath your feet are 150 kilometers of caves, carved into the chalk that makes the wines of this region so distinctive, full of bottles of Champagne.

Among the best know names on the Avenue de Champagne are Moët et Chandon, Perrier Jouet and Pol Roger.  As mentioned, there is also Mercier, which definitely ought to be a stop for any visitor to Épernay.  Not familiar to many Americans, Mercier is the most popular Champagne in France.  It certainly offers the best tour in town, with a train ride through the caves.  Its popularity probably stems from its price point; their flagship Blanc de Noirs costs only €33 ($36.50 at current rates).

Some of the architecture along the Avenue de Champagne

As you stroll down the avenue, pay attention to the architecture.  Some buildings, such as the two top names mentioned, are just factories.  But many are grand Belle Epoque mansions, a testament to the wealth that Champagne wines brought to Épernay.

 

In the center of the Southern Rhône winemaking region lies a rather sleepy little Provençal village called Vacqueyras (pronounced VA-kay-rass).  [Yes, in Provence they often pronounce the final “s”.  One might think it’s just to confuse the Anglophones.]  It wouldn’t exist, at least as it is in our times, if it were not for wine.  The Gauls made wine there; so did the Romans; winemaking was documented in the 15^th century; and the wines of Vacqueyras were recognized as an AOC in 1990.

The village of Vacqueyras.  Photo courtesy of Vaucluse-Visites-Virtuel.

So why visit a sleepy little village?  There are a number of reasons.  For one, nearly all the little villages in this Côte du Rhône region are rather somnolent.  You need to go to the nearby cities of Avignon or Orange to get a little action.  But you don’t come to this sector of France for action; the attraction is the good life: blue skies, sunshine, gorgeous scenery, friendly people, superb food and, oh yes, wine.  What Vacqueyras lacks in liveliness it makes up in charm.

There are a little more than 1,000 people living in Vacqueyras, while there are 100 wineries, and heaven only knows how many small vineyards that supply their grapes to the four cooperatives within the village’s borders.  That’s a very high vines-to-people ratio.  Considering that some of those folks staff the inns and cafés, there are even fewer to tend the grapes.

Those cafés are another reason to visit Vacqueyras.  There just aren’t that many other places to go for a meal in the area.  We’ve found only one restaurant and a snack bar in nearby Gigondas.  There are more in Beaumes de Venise down the road and maybe one or two in Seguret.  Appetite will take you to Vacqueyras.  And you will be well rewarded with local fare, including fish and seafood, lamb, fresh vegetables and fruits, and if you like an omelette aux truffes (truffle omelet).

“Downtown” Vacqueyras.  Photo courtesy of Horizon Provence.

The streets are lined with homes made from local beige stone, under shady trees.  In good weather you can sit at a café with some wine that may have been made within walking distance and just take in the views.  Those views include the Dentelles de Montmirail to the east, the alpine foothills that seem to Vacqueyrasiens like lace.  In the other direction are the seemingly endless high plains of the Terraces des Garrigues.  Garrigues are the wild hillside herbs that abound in southern France and which add a distinctive, if hard to describe, character to the wines made there.

And that wine you might be sipping is most likely to be a powerful red, with Grenache and Syrah as the dominant grapes, with Mourvèdre and Cinsault used for blending.  (See the accompanying article in this issue on one of our favorite Vacqueyras wineries.)  Yes there are whites and rosés, but the name “Vacqueyras” inspires thoughts of deep red velvet.  Unfairly, some of the other Côte du Rhône villages have grander reputations than does Vacqueyras, which enables you to buy desirable wines at lower prices than, say, Châteauneuf du Pape.

If you are wine tasting in the Southern Rhône – and at some point, you ought to – make sure that Vacqueyras is a stop on your route.