The house where we’re
staying, la maison, is more than 200
years old, but nicely updated with modern amenities. The kitchen appliances are new, it has a
nice, big bathroom with a tiled shower, washer and dryer, everything we really
need. We’re in the old part of the city
with old hotels, homes, fountains, courtyards, all very, very old and very
beautiful, all around us.
The doorways in the maison were built for inhabitants who
were much shorter than I. Take a look at
these nighttime photos of me standing in the door to the house and the kitchen with the
same photos of my cute and much shorter wife.
The weather in St. Rémy
is sunny with pleasant temperatures. Le mistral kicked up again, but not too
severe in town. For lunch, we strolled
to La Brasserie du Commerce across the street from the boulangerie. The terrace was nice, but cigarette smokers
made it less appealing, so we had the inside nearly to ourselves. Smoking is prohibited inside restaurants, but
is permitted on patios and terraces.
The carte was conveniently printed in French and English, an indication
of St. Rémy as an important tourist destination.
Neither of us wanted a large, multi-course
lunch, so Mary selected a salad called the Glanum, in recognition of nearby
archeological sites. It was a nice salad
of greens, bacon, and croustillants
topped with chèvre and herbes de Provence.
My lunch was an omelet
with Emmenthal and potatoes.
A demi-bouteille, a half-bottle
of a rosé by Mas de la Dame, a nearby producer, was perfect with a light
lunch on a sunny day, cool and refreshing, with the characteristic rosé notes
of berries and melon.
Here’s Brian putting his
nose in the glass to assess the aroma profile.
Rosé can be simple or complex, depending on many factors, but especially
the specific grapes included, the cépage,
and whether the grapes were mature at the time of harvest. I like to sense savory, meaty, peppery notes
in a rosé from this part of France.
Notice the interesting
bottle shape here in Provence. We saw
several of these on tables last night.
Also, check out the plastic bag with ice water for keeping the wine
chilled, an alternative to the traditional ice bucket.
We struck out for Les
Baux, a nearby cliffside village over the mountains from St. Rémy. As we approached, we could see a long line of
cars and tour buses snaking up the mountainside to Les Baux. Neither of us wanted to get into a big crowd,
so we decided to wait until another day.
Le mistral was blowing again, just as fierce as yesterday. I pulled over and talked Mary into recording
this short video. It’s shaky because I
had difficulty with keeping my balance in the wind. Aside from Mary’s hair, notice the shrubs and
trees being whipped by the wind in the background. We both got a laugh out of the experience. But imagine what this is like when it's day in and day out and how it would feel in the winter!
Mas de la Dame, the
producer whose wine we enjoyed at lunch, is close by and did not require an
appointment. We noticed that many wine
and olive oil producers have “Mas” in their name. Mary inquired about its meaning and learned
it means “house,” but is a specific style of house, not a château or a
maison. In the case of Mas de la Dame,
it can be translated to “house of the lady.”
Mas de la Dame seemed a
fairly large producer with large vineyards along the roadside. These photos show the vineyards leading to
the house and the Alpille Mountains in the background. You can also see how this tree in the vineyard is being whipped by the wind.
You can also see that olive trees are
abundant. We noticed as many olive oil
producers as wine domaines, possibly even more.
The mountains are huge, limestone peaks with limited vegetation and arid
valleys and plains. Mary said the
terrain had a baked or hot appearance that reminds her of parts of California and
Arizona.
We enjoyed the tasting
experience at Mas de la Dame and both had the same impression. There were lots of people at the tasting
counter, elbow to elbow, and the tasting room was stocked with a variety of
food products, wine, and souvenirs. I
said to Mary, “What does this remind you of?”
She immediately replied, “California tasting rooms.”
The wines themselves were
nice, especially the white and rosé, which were fresh, fruity, and easy to enjoy. The rouge,
which contains a blend of several grapes, principally Grenache, but also Syrah,
Cinsault, and Cabernet Sauvignon, had a distinctly ripe style, rich, fairly low
in acidity, with dark fruit flavors, blackberry, plum, and high in
alcohol. Anne, the very nice member of
the family who tasted us through their wines, discussed the need for Grenache
to reach high sugar levels in order to achieve proper ripeness, which means
high alcohol when the sugar is fermented by yeast. We know that this is not a universally held
view, but is certainly common, both here and in the New World.
Back at St. Rémy, we were
walking around town, which was quite busy, even on a Sunday afternoon, and
decided to stop at a sidewalk café and bar.
The wind was not quite as fierce as the afternoon progressed, the
temperature was pleasant, and we were glad to stop, relax, and watch the world
go by.
Mary enjoyed a cool rosé.
I had a coffee. As I mentioned in a previous post, ordering a
coffee with cream doesn’t always mean you’ll get what we think of in America as
coffee with a little cream added to it.
Sure enough, I ordered café crème,
and what came out was basically a latte, which is fine, I suppose. I’ll have to be more specific if I want the
American style of coffee.
We shopped at the
neighborhood marché earlier in the
day with a plan to cook dinner at the maison. We both thought brochettes de canard, duck breast kabobs with apricots, looked
interesting. Mary seared them on the
cooktop and finished them off in the oven, sautéed some haricot verts and parsley potatoes, et voilà!
We enjoyed Yves’ and
Marie’s Hautes Côtes 2011 from their own vineyard for dinner, just a plain, unlabeled bottle. It was not highly complex, it was straightforward
and aromatic and flavored of cherry and red berries, but very nicely balanced
and delicious for a casual dinner.
That’s
our post for today. We hope you enjoyed
it. We’re still settling into our new
surroundings. Keep checking back at Cépage et Cuisine for more as we explore the wine, food, culture, and
geography of Provence. In the meantime,
Cheers!
Mary♥Brian
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