SuperDave's Adventures in Eastern France's Wine Country COMPLETE!! 6/13 - Page 26 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Thursday, 16 May (Day 3 of 3 in Provence-Part One)
It’s been a while, since I did an update on my trip, which is closing in on a year ago, since I was in France! Sorry, for the delay, but unfortunately, life gets in the way.
Got up around 7:30 am, but there was no need to be in a hurry this morning as we wouldn’t be leaving with the group until 9:45 am. Today, we’d be making our fourth and final wine tasting visit on the trip. Unfortunately, today the weather forecast was the most dismal of the entire trip and for the most part it would all pan out! Yikes!
Had breakfast downstairs in the hotel. There were a few of my tour colleagues down here around 8:15 am when I arrived. Had the usual continental fair of two croissants, strawberry yogurt, coffee and grapefruit juice.
Went back upstairs to my room and got everything I would need for our trip today, including rain gear! Went outside for a while and took a walk in the upper town of this lovely area of Provence. It was raining a bit but not too hard. It was manageable for a while till it started picking up in intensity. I returned to the hotel and hung out in the lounge area of the hotel with some of my tour buddies, while we waited to depart this morning. In the meantime, I used a computer in the hotel lobby to check my emails.
At about 9:35 our group began the walk from the upper town to lower town in a steady rain. Glad it was a fairly warm rain. Most of the walk is downhill, so you need to be aware of your footing on the stone paths. Once, arriving in the lower town (about 5 minutes) it was a short and pretty level walk to our bus.
We left at 9:45 in our bus for the village of Seguret, which is a big wine producing area of the Rhone Valley in Provence. It was only about a 30 minute trip. Lots of great scenery with so many vineyards in the area. We arrived in Seguret at about 10:15.
Before making our winery visit, we visited one of the villages in Seguret. It was now pretty much a downpour now, but myself or anyone in our group would not let that get in our way. The town is very pretty and ancient with narrow, hilly cobblestone streets and lots of stone construction in the architecture here to match.
An old clock tower in Seguret. This is quite striking!
Cute little fountain with it’s appointed faces!
Look how steep, the path on the right is!
Small outdoor café in town
I love streets like this! Even better with the overhang with the ivy!
Not sure what this is, but something to do with wine, with the big oak wine barrel implanted in its’ wall. May be a small wine producer in town.
Some of the homes and a small garden in Seguret
Nice view from pretty high up here down in the valley on an overcast and rainy day!
One of the vineyards in Seguret
One of the wine producers of the region and their vineyards.
After our short walking tour of this lovely village in Seguret, we made it back down to ground level. It was beginning to pour again. There were a couple of small cars waiting there for us. It was the owners of the winery, we would now be visiting, who would drive us over to their facility for a tour, wine tasting and lunch there.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
It was quite amazing with the charming homes and those narrow cobblestone streets. The heavy rain put a bit of a damper on it, but I was still able to enjoy it!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Seguret, was such a nice town and especially this particular uphill village, which is quite typical of Provence.
This was actually the first and only day when it rained, that it put a bit of a damper on things somewhat! But we all made the best of it! Much more of an impact in the next installment!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Glad you enjoyed them. Such a lovely town. Just wish, the rain hadn't gotten in our way that day!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Thursday, 16 May (Day 3 of 3 in Provence-Part Two)
Well, another long delay on my TR. Just not always easy to get around to it! This time a week long trip to the “Happy Place” got in the way! Anyway, this is my third day in Provence (as you can see from the heading) and day 15 of 17 overall. So, it’s winding down now.
Well, after coming down from the hill town of Seguret in the pouring rain a couple of the family members who own the Mourchon Winery were waiting in cars to drive us to their winey, which was just a few minutes away. Even with a rain jacket, I was quite soaked in this torrential rain! They weren’t able to take all 16 of us (including our tour director Toni and bus driver Hilde) at once in two cars, so the others waited on the bus, till they returned to pick them up.
The short trip to the winery was basically, up narrow and steep dirt roads, which were now mud. Our driver, who is the son of the owner was driving quite fast on these muddy roads, but seemed to know what he was doing. In just a few minutes we were there. Mourchon is a small winery, but they do export a fair amount of their wine to elsewhere in Europe and the US as well.
Some of the large steel wine vats. Many producers use the oak barrels for aging the wines. Here they do both as there was wine aging in oak barrels as well on a smaller scale.
Next, the owner, Walter McKinlay who is originally from Scotland gave us a tour of the facility. He always wanted to open a winery and France to him was where he wanted to do it. It’s more cost effective in this area as being a producer you are heavily taxed on the actual vineyards. Some areas even close by much more than here. I think it may do with how much acreage there is for wine production as well as the type of grapes and wine being produced. Can’t remember the exact specifics of this. His daughter Kate and son in law Hugo are also very involved in the business as well, whom I met.
The business began in 1998 with a purchase of 17 hectares of existing vines and another addition of 7 more in 2003 to add to their ever increasing wine business to keep up with the demand.
Some of the wine being tested for quality etc. in the lab at Mourchon.
Sign in front of one of the wine vats, that is labeled what is being produced and aged in the particular vat. As you can see it’s an AOC Seguret. AOC means the French government certifies that this wine and all of the grapes were produced from this region as well as this particular vineyard. It’s like what a DOP is in Italy. It stands for Appellation d’Origine Controlee’.
Some of the smaller oak barrels used for wine production at Mourchon.
Wines that have been bottled are now aging, before being labeled.
Label on a pallet of bottles of wine in cases.
Pallet of boxed wines and it’s destination for export.
This was a short tour of the production at Mourchon and got a lot of good information about the production here and wine in general in France. Now it was time for some tasting upstairs!!
These are all the wines that are produced here from Rose, White, Rhone Red, Seguret, Chateneuf de Pape and a few reserves!
Some of the wines being poured by the owner of Mourchon, Walter during our tasting. That is some of my group behind him.
We probably tried about 6 or 7 wines. The ones I liked the most were the Rose, Chateneuf de Pape and the Grande Reserve. All were good! I even purchased a few bottles, just prior to leaving. Unfortunately, they’re not available any where near me with the closest being Michigan. Perhaps, I may see if one of these wine warehouses has them and see what the shipping costs are as they can be a bit steep!
After the tasting, it was lunch time downstairs by the wine vats, where they had a couple of tables set up for our group. Originally, we were going to have it outside near the vineyards, but the rain unfortunately prevented that.
A good assortment of cuisine for lunch including, Provencial steak, salad, quinoa, various vegetables, roasted peppers with marinated mushrooms, quiche, pates and various local cheeses, which were Camembert, Sheeps Milk Cheese, Goat Cheese and Compte. All was quite good! It was accompanied by some their wines. Those being Rose, White (similar to Chardonnay) and a Cotes du Rhone Red varietal.
Dessert time! Doesn’t that look good? It certainly was! A raspberry tart!
My group at lunch.
Another member of the McKinlay wine producing family!
Some of the beautiful scenery and vineyards of the Mourchon Winery! Too bad it was raining as this would have been a perfect setting outside for lunch!
By now the rain was gone and I purchased a couple bottles of wine from Walter. They were two of my favorites being, the Chateneuf de Pape and Grand Reserve. It was a little more than I usually spend on wine, but I think the two of them came to about $45.
Walter and his son and law Hugo drove our group back to the bus. Right near our bus was a great photo op for the below!
Our bus driver Hilde’s companion on her journeys!
We left at about 3:15 pm from Seguret back to Vaison La Romaine. It was a short drive and got back to our hotel in about 15 minutes!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Fascinating tour of the winery. I'm glad you enjoyed some of the wine. We did a vineyard tour outside of Bordeaux and the wines we tried there were absolutely awful!
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Fascinating tour of the winery. I'm glad you enjoyed some of the wine. We did a vineyard tour outside of Bordeaux and the wines we tried there were absolutely awful!
The wine was quite good and the food as good or even better! Surprised about your experience. But I guess, even the French can make some bad wines too!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Sorry you had to deal with so much rain, but I think the winery made up for that with the tour, the tasting, and lunch. It all looked delicious.
Yes, it certainly did, but it would have been so much better, experiencing this outside on a nice Spring day! Still, everything was great as you can see from the photos! The views would have been spectacular having a great lunch outside with some good wine on a warm day with a bit of a Spring breeze! That would be the ultimate, but you can't always have everything!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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Sorry, for the delay, but unfortunately, life gets in the way.
Went outside for a while and took a walk in the upper town of this lovely area of Provence. It was raining a bit but not too hard. It was manageable for a while till it started picking up in intensity. I returned to the hotel and hung out in the lounge area of the hotel with some of my tour buddies, while we waited to depart this morning. In the meantime, I used a computer in the hotel lobby to check my emails. 
Shame about the rain. 
It was accompanied by some their wines. Those being Rose, White (similar to Chardonnay) and a Cotes du Rhone Red varietal. 
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