After the usual hassle of air travel in the US, it is a pleasure to be riding across France at high speed on the TGV. Easy to show up at the station, in the centre of the city, purchase a ticket with 20 minutes to spare, step onboard with my bags and be underway within minutes. I certainly hope that the US begins to adopt high-speed rail service – it makes so much sense.
It strikes me just how agricultural France really is. Only a few minutes into the travel, one escapes the 11 million plus people and congestion of Paris, and we are riding across landscapes filled with fields of mustard, alfalfa, and freshly planted fields with scarecrows erected. Forget about California’s ‘Happy Cows’ – if they could see their French cousins, with rich glossy long red coats, chest-deep in lush green pastures… Somehow the dry scrub of the western range wouldn’t seem so good at all.
Looking at the map of the travel, it appears that we are heading to the East slightly, not quite as far as Dijon, and then skirting down the backside of Burgundy, emerging in Macon. From there, we will continue down through Lyon, and next down the Rhone Valley to Avignon. This train will also stop in Aix-en-Provence and finally Marseilles, but that will be after my exit.
I am planning to pick up a rental car upon arrival and continue to Chateauneuf du Pape, to meet with Daniel Coulon, of Domaine Beaurenard. Daniel’s son, Victor, is a third-year student in Agriculture and Oeneology in Toulouse, and will be an intern for us at EOS beginning in August and through the harvest season. It will be fantastic to meet his family, they are good friends and past business partners of my former clients, Bob & Jim Varner, of Park Wine Company. They used to import many French wines from Burgundy, the Rhone, and the Midi to the United States, and formed a fast bond with the Coulon family.
I am staying in Avignon this evening. I was there last summer, and made some friends – I don’t know if I will be able to contact them or not, but I will stop by where they work and see if they are around. Since I have the car, I think that I will try to explore more of the region of Provence – I don’t have a great guide book, unfortunately, but I imagine that opportunities will present themselves. There is a village called Les Baux that sounds interesting, and I would like to visit other wine regions. I need to arrive in Montpellier Sunday to meet the group of winemakers whom I will be travelling with – Montpellier is not very far away at all, so it should be easy.
Nimes is on the way, apparently with amazing Roman artifacts, and I would love to perhaps see Arles, Aix-en-Provence, etc… Probably Saturday evening will be left to chance as far as accommodation – it could be interesting to end up in a smaller village, rather than the cities that I usually end up in – cities are good, but off the beaten track could be interesting as well.
Last year in Montpellier, I made a good friend of Philippe Chapon, who is the Chef/Owner of Tamarillo’s. His cuisine is based on flowers and fruit – very creative and delicious. One guidebook that I was looking at purchasing listed his restaurant as their choice for dining in Montpellier, and stated that Philippe taught pastry to chef Gordon Ramsay! I will ask Philippe about this on Sunday, when I see him.
We are in more forested terrain at the moment, it is difficult to look out the window without eyestrain. I suppose that we are traveling over one hundred miles per hour – possibly near two hundred.
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