{"id":1582,"date":"2020-06-29T17:48:35","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T17:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2020-06-29T17:48:35","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T17:48:35","slug":"france-a-place-to-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1582","title":{"rendered":"France: A Place to Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the headline, you can\u2019t visit France, because France isn\u2019t just one place.\u00a0 (These days, you actually can\u2019t visit France at all because of the pandemic.)\u00a0 The country is so varied that you can\u2019t take it all in, either as a visitor or even as a resident.\u00a0 It\u2019s cities and countryside and mountains and beaches and, of course, vineyards.<\/p>\n

For a wine lover, visiting France is to have a little time in paradise, and almost every sector of the country grows grapes for wine.\u00a0 But the grapes in those vineyards differ tremendously, even those a short distance from each other.\u00a0 For example, if you start in the city of Lyons and drive just a half hour northwards, the vines hang heavy with Gamay and the wines are Beaujolais.\u00a0 The whites are Chardonnay, as they are just a bit north of Beaujolais but the red grapes are Pinot Noir.<\/p>\n

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The terraced vineyards of the C\u00f4te R\u00f4tie.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you leave Lyons in the other direction, again just a half hour away, you\u2019re in the Northern Rh\u00f4ne and the red grapes are mostly Syrah and the whites Roussanne and Marsanne.\u00a0 By comparison with America, the Northern Rh\u00f4ne and Beaujolais are as far apart as Carneros and Calistoga; imagine totally different production between one end of Napa Valley and the other.<\/p>\n

The heart of Champagne is only a few hours\u2019 drive from the heart of the C\u00f4te d\u2019Or in Burgundy.\u00a0 Yes, they both grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but the wines they make are totally different.\u00a0 So are the foods, the castles and the history of the two regions.\u00a0 It is not hard to envelope yourself in either place but there is a wrenching disconnect if you travel between them.<\/p>\n

Further west, the Loire Valley, also known as the Touraine (for the city of Tours) is best known for Sauvignon Blanc.\u00a0 The best-known red wine is Chinon, made from Cabernet Franc, although there is plenty of Gamay grown as well.\u00a0 These wines, for the most part, are not as grand as those of Burgundy and Bordeaux, but they do make pleasant drinking.<\/p>\n

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The broad expanse of vineyards in the Languedoc.<\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking of Bordeaux, the majestic red wines grown there are primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, with S\u00e9millon the major grape for white wines.\u00a0 For the travelling wine taster, Bordeaux is the most difficult to visit<\/a> and surely the snobbiest part of France.\u00a0 By contrast, head either east from Bordeaux to the Southern Rh\u00f4ne Valley or south to Languedoc<\/a> and the red grapes are Grenache, Syrah and Mourv\u00e8dre and the whites are Viognier and Picpoul, among others.\u00a0 (Actually, in Languedoc, you\u2019ll find a little of everything.)<\/p>\n

And so, our advice to our wine tasting friends is not to try to visit France all at once.\u00a0 Instead, focus on one or at most two regions at a time.\u00a0 Get to know the people, the villages, the roads, the markets, the foods and of course the wines.\u00a0 Historically, France was stitched together from many distinct regions.\u00a0 To this day, a Breton and a Proven\u00e7al have accents as different as a Brooklynite and a Texan.\u00a0 Yes, they talk the same language, but with very different accents. \u00a0\u00a0But the US is a very big country and France is relatively small.\u00a0 Going a short distance in France can change everything, from the wine to the architecture to the cuisine.\u00a0 But it\u2019s all France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the headline, you can\u2019t visit France, because France isn\u2019t just one place.\u00a0 (These days, you actually can\u2019t visit France at all because of the pandemic.)\u00a0 The country is so varied that you can\u2019t take it all in, either as a visitor or even as a resident.\u00a0 It\u2019s cities and countryside and mountains and beaches … Continue reading France: A Place to Visit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}