My wife and I will be spending a week in Aix-en-Provence in September and are planning a day trip to Chateauneuf to visit one or two properties. We could use some advice.
Beaucastel and Vieux Telegraphe are long-time favorites. I’m also a fan of Pegau. How are they about visits? We would call or email ahead for an appointment. Do we need to ask for help from the local distributor or retailer?
My French is passable for tourism, but I’m far from fluent and would be lost discussing winemaking in French. Are they, or any other properties known for tolerating English speakers?
Peggy’s not big into tastings and winery tours, so we plan on only one or two visits. Anything else we should be sure to do while there? Anything special to see, or someplace special to stop for lunch? Any comments on the drive from Aix to CduP and finding one’s way around?
I was in CdP recently. The trouble I ran into while booking tours was the May 1 holiday, and folks taking long weekends the day after (May 2 was a Friday). Otherwise Vieux Telegraph or La Barroche would have been no problem. You should be in good shape with most of who you’d be interested in visiting with a friendly email (I always started by translating it into French- most answered in English).
Because of the holiday period and it being a pain trying to figure out who was going to be open or not, I went with a tour. Olivier Hickman http://www.wine-uncovered.com/ does a good job. I was happy with the day he put together and his prices are reasonable. He also does half-days (two stops).
Beaucastel would be a very good place for you, given what you are saying. They have organized tours of the winery in both English and French, which end with pretty extensive tastings. You should call or email some time in advance to book a time and day. They can book up.
Vieux Telegraphe is a haul from Beaucastel, so you may lose some time driving. I would recommend Pegau. It is the opposite of Beaucastel, small and family run. Laurence speaks pretty good English and her husband is English, so you should be able to get a visit in English. Again, email in advance so you don’t catch them when they are busy.
Not everybody speaks English in CdP, but a lot do manage some these days. If you email in advance you should be able to set up a couple of nice visits without a problem.
It has been more than 10 years… but sounds like not much has changed…
Beaucastel was a great visit. Just send an email and arrange a time- ours was a group visit with a family from Germany IIRC. Really nice tour, and a generous tasting of 5-6 different wines, including barrel of Homage (which I don’t think is the norm, but if available for those that show real interest and talk up the guide).
My visit to VT was a bit underwhelming- mostly just a tasting of a single vintage. Almost tasting room-esque.
Mont-Redon was a reasonably interesting and informative tour. Tasted a bunch of stuff including the Marc they make. Not that I love Marc, but now I really know that.
I unfortunately did not get to do Pegau. For tasting only there are (were) a bunch of producers that have tasting room set-ups in the town.
We enjoyed visits at Clos des Papes, Janasse, Vieux Telegraph, Pegau, and La Nerthe. Pegau was our favorite. Nice people and a great history.
If you have time I would recommend stopping by Gigondas. Saint Cosme is a very nice visit. In Gigondas the L’Oustalet restaurant run by the Perrin family is absolutely fabulous. It’s about a 30 minute drive from Chateauneuf.
Most domaines were very accommodating and speedy with email replies.
The thing I remember most about visits to the S. Rhone, in 1985, was that they needed to invent the GPS. Visiting that region, in particular, was a nightmare in the pre-GPS days, since it’s so spread out. I’m still not sure how we got home.
I’ve visited Beau and Pegau numerous times and I recommend both as good visits. You can try and book on your own or use your ITB contacts. I have never visited VT.
I was there last July and this accurately sums up my visit to Beaucastel and VT. At VT, you get to taste the VT wines as well as the La Roquette wines made by the Bruniers. At Beaucastel, we tasted newer releases, including the white, and older vintages going back to 2001. Unfortunately, we could only buy the latest vintages at the chateau. I was hoping to walk out with some of the older vintages, especially after they showed us all of them in the basement. The stacking system was impressive.
As for Pegau, you can also stop at their tasting room in town. I did that last year as the wife was not interested in many winery tours. If I had to do it over, I’d have gone to the winery instead.
I’d also recommend Clos du Mont-Olivet. A small tasting room just off the town square. They were very accomodating and we were able to taste everything. Good wines and the prices are very reasonable. We ended buying a few bottles and drinking most of them while still in France.
I’ve tasted at a few of the places in town, but other than Pegau and Mont-Olivet would not recommend any.
This was my exact experience except we are talking about 14 years ago. Beaucastel was a really fun time. As much as I enjoy VT’s wines, I wouldn’t go back for another visit.
Lived in Provence for 10 years … spring and fall. Visited all the above … most numerous times.
Pegau and Beaucastel are excellent visits.
Two not mentioned are Janasse and Mordoree. Both are not in central CdP, Janasse is just off the autoroute and Mordoree is in Tavel. But, both make wonderful wines and they are available in the USA which means you can remember your tasting experience with every sip for years to come.
If you visit Mordoree give my best to Fabrice. His daughter spent a summer with us in Michigan as au pair to our grandson.
Just got back from two weeks in Provence (spent a day in Aix as part of it). Outside of the good recommendations for visits (I like La Nerthe), I would highly recommend that you spend a little time driving to the top of the hill to view the ruins of the papal “summer home”. It’s pretty cool, for what it is.
If you want to buy some wines, but not by the carton (though it is of course possible) and not committing to one domaine, I suggest you visit the caveau de Chateauneuf, where you can taste and buy from many producers at the same price as the domaine (or maybe 0.5€ more).
You can check their website for the list of domaines:
Thank you all for the great suggestions. We should be able to put together a nice itinerary. The hard part will be narrowing it down to just a day’s worth of activities.
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