Surprise, surprise, everyone managed to get up, fed, watered, and onto the bus in time to head back up to Chateauneuf Du Pape again, this time to a different cave , name to be added later, but owned and run by the LES VINS SKALLI organisation. This was much better organised with our host being Guillaume Herbinet, who we knew as their brand ambassador from his marketing trips to Edinburgh, there was water, coffee, croissants, etc, available when we arrived, and this was followed by a good presentation on the Company, which own four sites, one in Corsica, two in France ( Cave Notre Dame Dame in the Languedoc , Silene des Peyrals in the Languedoc) and one in the Napa Valley, California, (St. Supery Winery) . One of the ladies managed to doze off and dropped her glass which woke us all up again.
The tour was very good and the tasting which followed superb, there were twenty six wines on display and everyone was good, with many ranging from superb to excellent. Obviously this took a bit of time so we ran out of time as we were due back at the same restaurant for lunch. They had a wonderful gift shop on site with many unique items for sale, but with all the rushing about we did not get the chance to go and purchase anything.
Their best one for me was a Chateauneuf du Pape, caves Saint Pierre, "Preference" - which doubless was fairly expensive , but lovely.
This time lunch was much better, we were inside due to the stronger winds, but he staff were better organised, we had some choice over the menu and our veggies were properly looked after - in addition the wines were bloody marvellous.
After lunch we headed back to the bus - this time up the hill and as a group, where we met the head wine grower, and then followed him for about twenty miles to a vineyard near to Carpentras, where we were taken out into the vines, given a lecture and demonstration of what to look for, taken to a working production line which will soon be buzzing as the vines will start being harvested in the next few days, hopefully the rain will stay away and the winds will dry off the moisture presently lying on the grapes. Some of ladies, complete with high heels have rather muddy, if not ruined footwear as a momento.
This was a really facinating day and the family, staff , were great, so we had only praise for them. By the time we headed off on the bus and reached the hotel we only had about an hour to get organised before we headed out for dinner.
Our friends, Antoine and Francoise met up with us and the group and we headed to a restaurant a short distance from the hotel where we once again had complimentary wines, which accompanied an excellent meal. Graham was able to do small presentation to our host on behalf of the group, a nice bottle of Johnny Walker, before we broke up for the night.
Once again our group split up and the karaoke gang headed to the bar to upset the natives. The more sensible !!! headed home to bed.
This for me was a bit of a nightmare, as I ended up sleeping sitting up in a chair most of the night - but such is life.
So apart from the photos and adding a few photos the last three blogs or so tell a tale.
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