Pic-St-Loup

On Wednesday, Philippe took me out to the village of Pic-St-Loup. This is about 35km outside of Montpellier, away from the coast, and into the hillsides. As we drew near, the vegetation became more sparse and dry in appearance, and the hills more dramatic and full of cracked rocks and jutting craigs. As we entered Pic-St-Loup proper, the mountains to our left were amazing – towering peaks along a high plateau, with a cut, or canyon between two of the highest of the points.

As we were late in the day, it was difficult to secure appointments with the Domaines which reside in this area. We stopped briefly into the Chateaux de Cazeneuve, (www.cazeneuve.net) which is a beautiful small estate located midway up the slopes above the village. They were not undertaking tasting at that time, but suggested that they would be pouring their wines at the 1^er Anniversary of ‘L’Atelier’ (a wine bar) in Montpellier that very evening. Since Philippe had been too hurried to have anything at all to eat for lunch, we ordered some water and Philippe ordered some locally-cured ham to eat in the gardens of the L’Auberge du Cedre (www.auberge-du-cedre.com) located across the gravel path. This is a gorgeous place – leafy and green with gardens, filled with blossoms of every kind – it has a view of the escarpments above the valley, and vines just across the plaza. The Auberge has a small kitchen, and turns out very good food – in addition, it has a cellar from which it can sell the wines of the domaines in the area – so if you call an estate, and they are not open, you can purchase from the cellars of the Auberge instead. With a swimming pool, hiking trails in the hills, a court for playing boules, and an outdoor table for playing ping-pong, I could easily imagine spending some serious time here somewhere in the future.

We had to head back to Montpellier, and stopped at a Caviste, or wine shop near Les Arceaux (the ancient Roman aqueduct.) (Les Cave des Arceaux – www.cave-arceaux.com) This caviste sells many of the best wines of the region, and he also can fill people’s bottles from bulk wines which he keeps in the back of the cellar. He was doing just that for some local people. They gave me a bit of shit for not speaking French, so I started to talk in the small amount of French which I am able. (Usually here, whenever I try to speak French, my speech is so bad that they come right back at me in English…) So, I did okay, could understand them mostly, and when I spoke, they sometimes had to correct my pronunciation, but generally I can get by okay – I know that I do not speak in the correct tense all the time, nor with the correct conjugation, but hey, whatever!

I told my very first joke in French, (merci to Pierre, with whom I used to work on a Yacht in the Caribbean / South America long, long ago,) and got a laugh, so that is good! Basically; “A person who speaks two languages, we call Bilingual. A person whom speaks three languages, we call Trilingual. But do you know what we call someone who speaks but one language?” To which the answer is; “An American!” (followed by great chortling and laughter… (well, the French are not great chortlers, nor laughers…))

My favorite site nearby was the area under Les Arceaux for “Les Bollistes” or the bowlers of Petanque; the relaxed, southern French pastime version of Bocce. Petanque does not require special, regimented courts, just a shady, flat space of gravel, with a glass of rosé or pastis close at hand.

After, we moved for a bit to the anniversary party for ‘L’Atellier’ wine shop, (see the 6-4 post, of which this is an expansion of the same day...) with amazing oysters, escargots, clams, and other appetizers paired with great wines. I was greeted with a glass of rosé with two ice cubes in it, which was perfect, considering the warm afternoon. (I will never be shy of adding ice to rosé again!) There were three chateaux pouring their wines, including Chateaux de Cazeneuve, as well as young Julien Chapel from Saint Daumary, (also in Pic-St-Loup,) and his companion, who expecting their first child. Their wines were beautiful; the blanc floral and cooling – the red was very serious, and new-world in style, while retaining the herbal and aromatic sense of the region. Also, I met a vigneron who had been to the Hospice du Rhone for the festival there, pouring his wines – “It was a disaster!” he said – “Me, pouring my wines for thousands of people, and talking to them!!” I sense that it was not a total disaster; he seemed to be pleased that he had been, and remembered the mechanical bull at Big Bubba’s Bad BBQ. I am sure that, though they like to play (bullfighting,) with the bull plenty in the south of France, they probably do not have opportunity to tangle with a mechanical bull on many occasions!

More Pic-St-Loup photos at my flickr.com account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18097654@N05/sets/72157605570104068/