Meeting a coffee roaster hadn’t crossed my mind as I planned a brief stay in this corner of Provence, but I’d come looking for passionate purveyors of fine food and drink, and coffee seemed like a great place to start.

1. Yves Aubert-Moulin, coffee roaster

Yves Aubert-Moulin was discussing blends with a customer when I arrived at Cafés au Brésil, a few streets from the café on Place de l’Horloge where I’d read the news. Tall, young, eager, confident and engaging, he seemed more like an ambitious apprentice than a nationally recognized expert. That impression, I soon learned, was close to the truth: Mr. Aubert-Moulin had gained his expertise through an apprenticeship in that very shop or, equally significant, by falling for the owners’ daughter.

“I got into coffee by getting into the family,” he said.

He has worked in the Bouquet family’s coffee shop since 2008 and is now married into both the family and the business, a find blend indeed.

Out of some 600 coffee roasters in France, Mr. Aubert-Moulin was named France’s Best Coffee Roaster of 2012 in an annual competition among six finalists organized by the French Coffee Committee.

Café au Brésil,  24 rue des Fourbisseurs. Tel. 04 90 82 49 71.

2. Les Halles d’Avignon, the covered food market

The wall above the main entrance to Les Halles d’Avignon, the indoor food market, on Place Pie, is covered by a vertical garden, the work of Patrick Blanc, a French botanist responsible for the creation of many such gardens around the world.

Mid-morning,  was bustling with passionate purveyors and their knowing consumers. Its 40 stands make this an ideal place to get to know the foodstuffs of Provence, especially if on a limited time-budget in the region. Turns out this is also a great place to run into some fine chefs, among them Jean-Claude Altmayer (see #5 below), whom I was introduced to as he was kibitzing with his chef and market buddies over coffee.

The market is open mornings daily except Monday, 6am-1:30pm on weekedays, 6am-2pm on weekends. Free cooking demonstrations are held in the little kitchen at the market on Saturdays from 11am to noon.

3. Arnaud de la Chanonie, wine-seller

Late morning is said to be the ideal time for tasting wine before one’s taste buds have been overly solicited and assaulted by a midday meal. But it was too early for me to lift a glass today. Nevertheless, the moment was right to stop at Avitus, a classy wine shop that doubles as a wine bar in the heart of the old town, so as to meet owner Arnaud de la Chanonie.

Avitus is named for a Gallo-Roman emperor from Auvergne, the large region on the western side of the Rhone from which Mr. de la Chanonie’s family hails. But Avignon is known as the capital of Cotes du Rhone wines so the shop/bar is naturally heavy on wines from the Rhone Valley.

Even before a cork has been pulled one senses in speaking with Mr. de la Chanonie the elegant expression of the wines sold here. His approach in presenting the wines he sells is amiable, discreet and informative—altogether helpful if looking for the right bottle to go with the picnic you’ve prepared at Les Halles to take down by the Rhone.

Personally, I already had lunch plans, so I returned to Avitus early evening two days later before leaving Avignon on a 9pm train. It was a Friday, early evening, wine bar time. Mr. de la Chanonie is a fan of jazz, swing and blues. It’s occasionally played live here but was recorded this evening. Between the music, the chummy conversation about wine and whatnot, and the coming and goings of what seemed to be regulars, Avitus felt like a speak-easy. I didn’t see the time pass and wished that I’d taken a later train… the following day.

Editor’s note: Since the initial publication of this article, Arnaud de la Chanonie has moved Avitus to the town of Pernes-les-Fontaine, 15 miles east of Avignon, where it is no longer a wine bar but still a wine shop, at Marché de la Gare, 217 avenue de la Gare.

3. Renaud Tisseur, restaurant owner, Le Bain-Marie

Renaud Tisseur is a likeable presence in a most likable restaurant.

He credits his mother, Régine Viaud, with his devotion to serving quality food within the peaceable setting of the walls of a 14th-century mansion surrounding a plane tree-shaded courtyard. She had opened a first Bain-Marie in 1979 and moved it to this location in 1988, maintaining it until her death. It was reopened in 2006 by Mr. Tisseur.

The restaurant’s soothing seating lends itself to easy-going romance and other meals requiring unpretentious comfort. The menu, reasonably priced, even inexpensive considering the quality, leans easily on French and Provencal culinary traditions with a distinct fondness for foie gras, filet de boeuf and scallops along with assorted herbs and a touch of mother’s generous personality—or at least from what I imagine to be her personality from the small collection of her recipes that Mr. Tisseur has published.

Le Bain-Marie. 5 rue Pétramale. 04 90 85 21 37. Open lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday.

4. Aline Géhant, chocolate maker

Aline Géhant’s rise in the ranks of chocolate-makers took a major leap when she won the Young Talent Award at Paris’s chocolate trade show, le Salon du chocolat, in October 2011. That award and a taste for good chocolate (I’d selected a light dessert at Le Bain-Marie) had brought me to her shop. But it wasn’t the taste of the chocolate that first led Aline Géhant to her craft at the age of 25. “I fell in love with the material,” she said. Working with only one apprentice, she still very much has her hands in it.

I went Provencal that afternoon with a tasting of her lavender, thyme and fig ganaches—with a special fondness for the thyme—and a few other pralines and classics to go.

Asked if she was interested in adding pastries to the mix as other chocolate-makers do, she said, “I’m not interested in pastries, either making or eating them… I prefer cheese.”

Aline Géhant Chocolatier, 15 rue des 3 Faucons. Tel. 04 90 02 27 21. Open Tuesday-Saturday 10am-1pm and 3-7pm.

5. Jean-Claude Altmayer, chef

Jean-Claude Altmayer is the most exuberant chef I’ve ever met. Perhaps that’s because he has nothing more to prove in the kitchen—he says that he’s cooked for five presidents—but simply enjoys the pleasure of his craft and of direct encounters with his guests, his convives.

On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and upon special request, Mr. Altmayer receives up to 16 guests by his “piano,” a more than centenary stove in the basement of an ancient cardinal’s palace that is now La Mirande, Avignon’s luxury boutique hotel, right behind the Popes’ palace.

I went to the hotel in the late afternoon. The reception staff was politely wary about my request to make an impromptu visit to the chef in the basement but Mr. Altmayer welcomed me without hesitation and invited me to have an aperitif of white wine as he finished prepping for the evening’s meal.

He spoke with passion about his past experiences, encounters with the famous and the not, and his current guest table, all the while revealing his generosity of spirit through he’s joyful scraping out of scallops from the shell

and his handling of bloody pigeons

and his stirring of a large pot.

Several months after my aperitif interview, I had the pleasure of attending one of Mr. Altmayer’s dinners, where his craft, his tales of meals past and his generosity of spirit were all on display. He’s as much a bighearted chef as he is a jovial performer. As chef, he prepares a meal of rustic gastronomy, rich in the French traditions of freshness, precise timing and earnest, recognizable taste. As performer, Mr. Altmayer is a natural who makes everyone feel like a special guest attending a singular event.

When reserving (done though the hotel), be sure to mention any food allergies or major dislikes. However, unless you’ve reserved the chef’s table for your own private group it’s best to leave your food issues upstairs and simply arrive honorably (not overly) dressed and with an open appetite and a sense of culinary joy. Being an undemanding guest is the best way to allow Chef Altmayer, as he stands before his “piano,” to be a wonderful host.

The aperitif (which may be served in the sub-basement wine cellar), followed by a 3-course meal including wine and accompanied by Chef Altmayer’s “performance” and cooking tips costs 86 euros. That may not be appropriate for everyone’s budget, but if the price is palatable and you’re lucky enough to get a seat at Chef Altmayer’s table this may well be your most memorable indoor meal in Provence.

La Mirande, 4 place de l’Amirande. Tel. 04 90 14 20 20. Jean-Claude Altmayer isn’t the chef of the hotel’s gastronomic restaurant on the ground floor but rather the host of an extraordinary guest table in the ancient basement, where he cooks for up to 16 guests on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and upon special request.

6. Philippe and Daniele Hiély, restaurant owners

An aperitif with Jean-Claude Altmayer is a tough act to follow, but the transition to dinner turned out to be smooth and effortless and an admirable act in its own right.

Thanks to the combined passions of Philippe Hiély as master of the kitchen and Daniele Hiély as mistress of the dining room, La Fourchette is friendly, fine-fared Avignon institution where local regulars and visiting tourists happily coexist.

Monsieur’s extensive menu of polished French traditional cuisine ensures that there’s something to please everyone, though the choice may be difficult, while Madame’s good humor in the knickknacked dining rooms—walls decorated with forks and cicadas—ensures that you’ll be able to take your time in choosing.

They Hiélys opened La Fourchette in 1982, so just imagine the complicity that’s necessary to be caught on camera 30 years later like this:

La Fourchette, 17 rue Racine. Tel. 04 90 85 20 93. Open Monday-Friday.

7. Michel Blanc, wine promoter

Michel Blanc represents the winegrower of this Chateauneuf-du-Pape with infectious brio. His title is Director of the Federation of the Unions of Chateauneuf-du-Pape Producers (Fédération des Syndicats des Producteurs de Châteauneuf-du-Pape). That sounds stiff and officious, but Michel Blanc comes across as a joyful wine aficionado who’d be happy to swill any wine with you (and you with him) at a wine festival.

Mr. Blanc and I did actually have the occasion to swill together at a wine festival, la Fête de Veraison, a celebration of Chateauneuf-du-Pape that’s held the first weekend of August. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Six months earlier, on my initial visit to Chateauneuf, the day after the food and drink encounters in Avignon (9 miles south) described above, we met for lunch at the well-fed, wine-happy restaurant La Mère Germaine.

Tastings that morning at Chateau Gigognan and at Domaine de Beaurenard had put me in the mood to learn more about Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

In 1933, Chateauneuf-du-Pape became the first winegrowing region in France to define parameters by which producers could use the appellation. It’s that head-start as a winegrowing area (7959 acres of it) defining terroir and the general conditions for producing quality wines that brought Chateauneuf-du-Pape its international fame. When I grew up 1960s and 1970s, the name Chateauneuf-du-Pape was synonymous with wine sophistication—not that we know anyone whoever drank it. The international wine market has become too vast and varied for a single appellation to be so evocative these days, but Chateauneuf remains a most curious appellation producing a variety of quality wines, some superb, mostly red. White wines represent about 7% of the production and are well worth discovering.

The curiousness of this appellation—and the difficulty of getting a handle on its wines—stems from its diversity of soils (clay and/or sand, often remarkable for their natural carpet of large pebbles and sharp calcareous stones) and of grape varieties allowed in production (13 in number, some with sub-varieties, led by granache, with syrah, mordèvre and cinsault a distant second, third and fourth).

Over lunch we made stops at Clos Saint Michel, Domaine Durieu and Domaine Grand Veneur.

That first visit to Chateauneuf may not have turned me into an unconditional fan or a connoisseur, but having tasted dozens of other Chateauneuf’s since then, studied (well, a bit) an awfully big book on the subject, “The Chateauneuf-du-Pape Wine Book” by Harry Karis (with forewords by Robert Parker and Michel Blanc), revisited the town during its August wine festival and taken part in the grand mass of French wine tasting in Paris with a seat at one of the Chateauneuf tables on the national jury of the Concours Agricole at the Salon de l’Agriculture, I credit Mr. Blanc with turning me into a curious occasional consumer of the wines he so passionately represents.

The passion of a purveyor of fine food and drink rubs off—a good reason to seek them wherever you travel.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

Also see Avignon: Practical Information and Choice Accommodations and Black Diva and the Roman Theater of Orange.

The post Profiles in Provence: Passionate Purveyors of Fine Food and Drink in Avignon and Châteauneuf-du-Pape appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

I’ve come to the town of Nyons (pop. 7000) in the Provence-leaning part of the department of Drome with a small group of other foreign journalists to investigate elements of the local economy relative to food, drink and tourism—Rhone Valley wines, appellation olives and olive oil, lavender and castles—and we’ve made a decidedly non-touristic stop for lunch. We have been invited to eat like sixth graders at the cafeteria of Collège Barjavel, Nyons’s middle school.

School is out this Wednesday afternoon but Chef Jean-Luc Baconnier and Sous-chef Pascale Duhornay have prepared for us and for working staff some lunch fare that is part of a Drome middle school program called “Manger bien, manger bio” (Eat well, eat organic). The program, in effect in the department’s 30 middle schools and available to its 13,000 students, ensures that 25% of the food served in the cafeteria comes from organic agriculture and farming, including from local producers when possible.

Drome, which stretches along and east of the Rhone Valley from just south of Lyon to just north of Avignon, prides itself on being the leading department in France for organic agriculture. More than 13% of its agricultural surface—compared to a national average of less than 3%—is certified as organic (or biodynamic, a sub-category of organic agriculture with stricter rules), representing 856 farms. The department also has 133 preparers and transformers and about 50 specialized organic shops. Within its agriculture, Drome further considers itself a world leader in organic plants used in perfumery, scents and medicines (see information on lavender in Part 3 of this article).

Implemented progressively over the past few years, the “Eat well, eat organic” program’s goal of ensuring that on average 25% of food served in middle school cafeterias for the 2012-2013 school year be certified as organic has now being achieved. The cafeteria at joint middle school/high school complex in Nyons has surpassed that goal with 33%, according to Céline Roupioz, Drome press attachée. The appetizers in front of me are among the result.

Chef Baconnier was filling the appetizer trays at the salad bar that had been placed in the middle of the cafeteria as I examined the options. I looked up at him. He had the apprehensive smile of a man waiting for someone to tell him what I thought of his work.

“It all looks so good,” I said.

“We made special efforts with the presentation because you were coming,” he said.

The “you” referred to the group of journalists that I was a part of but it still made me feel special. And I realized that the presentation did indeed look too good for a hoard of sixth graders thanks to the decoration of parsley sprigs, the black Nyons olives and popcorn and the orderly arrangement of the endive boats.

I hesitated in making my selection.

“Are you looking for something?” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to what looked like individual portions of carrot juice.

“A carrot and orange juice smoothie,” he said. “Nothing simpler and the kids actually like it.”

“I imagine so,” I said for no particular reason.

He had a tremendous spoon in his hand which he now used to point out the contents of the ramekins, trays and endive boats: “Pureed beets, leeks, squash, carrots.”

I thanked him and he left for the kitchen.

When I turned back to the appetizer bar a horrible realization took hold of me: I couldn’t remember anything that I had eaten through the entire year of sixth grade.

No, it was more than that. I had absolutely no memory of sixth grade at all. None! I tried to conjure up the school cafeteria, the names of my teachers, class subjects, gym class activities, my best friends—but nothing came to mind. I tried to remember seventh grade—it, too, a total blank. How, I wondered, did I ever learn anything? Did I learn anything?

I took a little bit of everything from the appetizer bar, everything but the grated carrots which I assumed tasted like grated carrots.

For some reason I was surprised that the carrot and orange juice smoothie tasted like carrots and orange juice. I don’t know what I was expecting, perhaps something that an American sixth grader would “actually like.”

But then it hit me again that I didn’t know what American sixth graders would like because not only did I not know any sixth graders, which might not be such a bad thing, but I couldn’t remember having been one myself. And once again I was seized by the fearful thought that an entire year had been erased from my memory and there was no way or retrieving it. And seventh was gone too.

I stared hard into my organic beets and suddenly remembered the first Earth Day. I must have been in either sixth or seventh grade. It was April. We all got off the bus a half-mile before school and walked the rest of the way, proud to be something good for the planet while a long line of buses, cars and their drivers collectively fumed in the snarled traffic caused by so many kids on the road. I couldn’t remember anything that happened before or after that, but it was a start.

I looked up from my beets and saw that everyone else had already finished their appetizers. The sight of one of the foreign journalists in the group telling one of the cafeteria workers about the food in the cafeteria in her hometown in eastern Europe brought to mind a girl on my bus who once said to me, “Let’s have a debate about why 18-year-olds should be able to vote since they can get sent to Vietnam. I’ll be for, you be against” and then proceeded to berate me for wanting to send young men off to get killed without a vote. I must have been 12 and a good listener.

I caught sight of Patricia Bilcocq, la proviseure or principal, whom I hadn’t yet spoken with other than to say hello when we first arrived. I remembered that somewhere in my childhood I’d learned that it’s principal and not principle because the principal is your pal. Apparently I’d learned something! I was feeling better already. I went over to talk to her.

France’s national education system, known as “the mammoth,” employs over one million fonctionnaires and oversees 12.5 million students and apprentices in 65,657 schools, 87% of which are public. Each and every employee of l’Education nationale is in some way a block in the final rampart defending the values of the Republic, as many of them will let you know in one way or another whether you’ve asked or not. The United States, by contrast, has a primarily local and state system where “values” as such are more open to local interpretation (in some cases questioned before the Supreme Court) and where winning sports teams and extracurricular activities are perceived as equally important as the classroom. I am not pleading here for one system over the other but pointing out that in speaking with Madame la proviseure I was aware that she represented the French Republic even while serving the locality.

The monolithic tendencies of the French state are well known; Paris dictates and coddles as it wishes (while occasionally looking over its shoulder at the European Commission), and this is particularly true of the Ministry of Education. Nevertheless, successive moves have been made toward what is called decentralization, i.e. the movement of responsibilities, agencies and cultural works outside of Paris, strengthening the hand of departments (subsections of regions and comparable in some ways to American counties) in matters concerning transportation, social services, education and culture. School cafeterias are now the domain of the department, allowing leeway in purchasing and serving, within national nutritional guidelines.

Among the complexities of who is responsible for what in the French school system, the department (Drome here) oversees the middle school cafeteria while the high school is the domain of the region (Rhone-Alpes here). The middle school of Nyons, Collège Barjavel, however, is one of two in the department that is also part of larger school complex that includes the high school, Lycée Roumanille. High school students nevertheless have more opportunities to leave school campus for a smoke and a bag of chips.

Despite Principal Bilcocq’s role in overseeing both the high school and the middle school, there was no making small talk about the football team or about this year’s production of “Bye Bye Birdie” or whether or not there was a gay-straight student alliance. We talked about the cafeteria.

Between the middle school and the high school, 900 students, faculty and staff eat in the cafeteria every day in a school complex that includes 1200 students ages 10½ to 19. Those not counted among the 900 eat at home or otherwise opt out of eating at the cafeteria. A staff of 8 to 10 departmental employees works in the kitchen.

Beyond the nutritional aspects of the “Eat well, eat organic” program, Proviseure Bilcocq lauded the importance of involving the school in the local agricultural economy, whether for organic or non-organic products, since many of the school’s children come from families working in that economy.

Nyons is in the southern portion of Drome, an area referred to as “Drome Provencale” beause it identifies in terms of weather and landscape with Provence which is generally considered as beginning in the department of Vaucluse, several miles south of here. The area within 10 miles of Nyons, Pays de Nyons, is especially known for its appellation olives and olive oil and Rhone Valley wines while the broader area of Drome Provencale is also rich in lavender, truffles, honey and fruit trees (more on the surrounding area in Part 3). Though much of that is not as yet certified organic, the local economy depends heavily on agriculture.

Implementation of the “Eat well, eat organic” program involved approaching the question of cafeteria food and nutritional education at several levels. A major dual element is the purchasing price on the one hand so as to presents meals at an acceptable cost on the other. Families now pay 3.50€ (about $4.55) per student for those who have been signed up at the start of the year to lunch regularly at the cafeteria. For those who lunch here occasionally the cost is 3.86€ (about $5.02) per meal. Efforts are also made to eliminate waste, to properly train kitchen and serving staff, and to inform students and their families about nutrition. Nutritionists giving presentations in classrooms during the first year of middle school, i.e. at about student age 11.

It all sounded quite idyllic, especially on a day with no students around. Aware of that impression, Principal Bilcocq warned against a romanticized vision of Nyons’s schools. She acknowledged that despite its strong points Nyons was also confronted with the array of contemporary problems found throughout the French school system, including drugs and violence, failing students and uninvolved parents.

“We have a diverse community,” she said, citing first- and second-generation immigrants and the children of seasonal workers. “There are even some English, Belgians, Dutch and lately even a few Americans.”

Each day at lunch students have the option for their main course of one meat dish (beef, fowl, pork) and one fish dish along with side dishes that might be considered as vegetarian dishes. For today’s main course the choice was been chicken, julien (ling, a type of cod) and, as side dishes or on their own, spelt (a type of wheat grain) and cabbage and carrots, with or without pork lardons. I took a bit of each and a full portion of the organic chicken.

The grain and veggies were tasty enough. The lightly breaded baked ling was a bit chewy but still healthily prepared. And the chicken was truly and surprisingly tasty, better than one would find, say, in a decent café in Paris.

Later, when I went into the kitchen to compliment the chef, he said that the chicken served today was indeed one of the successes of the organic purchase policy. He regretted, however, that our visit didn’t coincide with the arrival of a wider selection of organic produce, hence the frequent appearance of carrots. When possible, he said, organic flour was used in the bread.

He said that discovering how to use those organic products in a way that the students would eat—after all, the goal is not simply to purchase organic food but to get students to eat it and appreciate its origin—involved a certain amount of trial and error. Early in the program there had been attempts to have some 100% organic meals to compensate for meals served when less organic produce was available, but the children didn’t care for them, so now they mix organic and non-organic dishes in fulfilling the program’s purchasing and nutritional objectives.

We were next offered a cheese course—goat, brie and some Alpine tome. It wasn’t exactly a sixth grade memory, but I don’t believe we had a cheese course at my school in New Jersey.

There followed then a selection of three desserts, fresh fruit or cut fruit, slices of pound cake and arched biscuits called tuiles.

Oddly, as I stood back at the salad bar examining the deserts I had a vision of Snack Pack pudding in my lunch bag. I couldn’t put a grade to it, but apparently I still had some middle school memories tucked away. I’d had a childhood after all, and possibly a pretty favorable one at that since I presumably would have remembered anything traumatic. I wondered if, like Proust with the madeleine, my entire middle school period would flood back to me the next time I were to taste a Snack Pack.

My lunchmates and I now said cheery good-bye to the principal and her staff. It was as though it were graduation day and none of us planned to return until we were rich and famous, or had at least filed our reports and our articles.

Already we must have done something right, because within an hour we were raising a glass to the light while attending a class at Wine University.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Continue to Part 2 of Drome Provencal: Eat Like a Sixth Grader, Drink Like a Wine Enthusiast.

The post Drome Provencale: Eat Like a Sixth Grader, Drink Like a Wine Enthusiast, Part 1 of 3 appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

I was never a very conscientious student but I must have done something right because within an hour of eating like a sixth grader I was sitting in a classroom at Wine University (Université du Vin), 16 miles west of Nyons, swirling, sipping and spitting, in no particular order, a selection of lesser-known wines produced in the department of Drome.

In a modern classroom with the walls of the medieval castle of Suze-la-Rousse, I took part in an excellent lesson on regional diversity with a tasting of Chatillon en Diois (Aligoté), Grignan (Viognier) and Brézème (Syrah/Shiraz). There’re nothing like name-dropping to let people know that you’ve traveled.

Indeed, having stopped two days earlier on the way south in Hermitage country (Hermitage, Tain l’Hermitage, Croz-Hermitage) and tasted, among others, M. Chapoutier’s delightfully complex, promising, white Chante-Alouette Hermitage 2010 (Marsanne, biodynamic), the opportunity to discover lesser-known appellations at Wine University was much appreciated.

See, I’ve done it again, name-dropped, this time with a little more detail. Journalists, writers and bloggers do that all the time, especially with regards to travel and wine. We do that to let readers know not only that we’ve traveled but that we’ve traveled to fine places armed with experience and knowledge and returned with even more. The reader is then left with the disturbing task of deciding whether names have been dropped to impress or provided to convey information. You might therefore be wondering: Does this author actually know anything about wine or is he faking it?

Best not to drop too many names or you’ll take me for a wine maven, a wine snob or that certain kind of wine enthusiast who never ceases to amaze and annoy me. I am referring to the enthusiast who, in a non-professional or non-educational setting, will take hold of an assembly to let us know that we cannot progress any further into the evening until he or she has made thorough analysis of the nectar being served.

I certainly understand the desire to share one’s knowledge and one’s opinions. What’s surprising in the case of the self-appointed and gratuitous wine analyst is his momentary (one hopes) inability to stop chewing his wine long enough to look around the table and realize that at that moment the rest of us are being neither educated nor entertained but simply sitting there like a group of hungry non-believers waiting politely for a faith-based table companion to finish saying grace. We don’t mind, really, we’re just waiting for you to finish expressing your vision of the world so that we can proceed with that humanistic ritual called sharing a meal.

I got to thinking of this while at Wine University because it made me question my own relationship with wine. Having visited large swaths of the wine regions of France, written much about them, interviewed producers, sellers and connoisseurs, attended numerous wine tastings in addition to simply tasting numerous wines, given tours of Champagne and Burgundy and the Loire Valley, given lectures about French wine regions in the U.S., and even conducted incredible wine bar tours in Paris—having practically swum in wine some days, what was my relationship with wine?

Did I belong in Wine University?

Université du Vin is an institution for professionals and enthusiasts and for seriously interested students of all ages to further their education in any number of subjects related to wine and the wine industry over the course of a few hours or many months—all this in a historical setting of a medieval castle-cum-pleasure palace-cum-wine university.

The instructors, to judge by my small sampling that afternoon, were clear, expressive, highly trained and able to address questions without condescension.

I enjoyed my taste of Wine University. It appealed to my curiosity. And for a moment there I felt a tinge of heightened enthusiasm at sitting in an actual lecture-like classroom with several glasses, a notepad and a sink in front of me. I briefly imagined myself staying at Suze-la-Rousse for a week: classes in the morning, a hike or a bike ride on a sunny day, an afternoon in the reference library of 6000 works in case of rain, a long dinner with new-found wine friends, followed by a long-earned sleep in a monastic cell, no, make that a cozy B&B. I’ve had similar moments in other settings I’ve imagined staying put in Italy to learn Italian, in Spain to practice salsa, on someone’s couch to study Spinoza.

But I never will—not with much depth; just a curious little flirt, a brief and memorable affair before moving on. I realized during the class that afternoon that I didn’t have a sustained interest in distinguishing between mineral, floral, fruit or animal or in considering acidity versus tannins or in examining the nuances of yellowish whites and purplish reds.

No, I am not an enthusiast. I am curious. I am a curious traveler, a frequent wine drinker, someone who enjoys meeting wine folk, especially in their vineyards and cellars and homes.

Having finished the Chatillon en Diois and now onto the Grignan, an area whose a chateau I’d visited the previous day (see Part 3 of this article), I was well aware that I’m more enthusiastic about old stones than I am about young wines, but I quite like combining the two when I travel.

On the approach, the hilltop castle of Suze-la-Rousse appears to be the model of a medieval fortification with its high uninviting walls and crenellated tower. But once inside it relaxes its defenses and reveals itself to be a pleasure palace with a 16th-century (Renaissance) courtyard and later transformations including a grand staircase and pastel drawing rooms.

Add the multi-layered study of wine to that and you’ve got an institution where French heritage and the contemporary marketplace for wine play off each other like a light show on the façade of a Gothic cathedral. The current spirit of the place is amusingly evident in the castle’s chapel, once a setting for Holy Communion, recently transformed into a temperature-controlled tasting room.

With or without the wine, the chateau can be visited by appointment.

While the training of young and budding sommeliers and cellar-masters/cavistes with professional or amateur ambitions is at the heart at the university, Universite du Vin also offers classes and courses concerning other important aspects of the wine industry: production techniques, markets, marketing, regulations. Diplomas and degree programs in management and marketing, law, production and scientific measures of quality and of tasting are available in conjunction with other educational institutions. Regarding the wine tasting here, there’s naturally a strong emphasis on French wines but other wines are also present.

Created in 1978, Université du Vin now welcomes about 200 students per year along with another 2000 who come for various training sessions. Classes are also available for enthusiasts and other who may or may not arrive with (or admit to) professional ambitions.

To name but a few classes and courses that are open to those, professional or amateur, with a working knowledge of French: a 4-day initiation to wine tasting; a 1-day class in recognizing and understanding flaws in wine; a 1-day class devoted to the olfactory aspects of wine.; a 1-day class in creating a wine cellar and a wine list for your restaurant; assorted 1- to 3-day classes on getting to know the wines of specific wine regions. This year there was also a 3-day class in English on Rhone Valley wines.

These are serious classes taught by highly trained professions and are not intended as sales pitches for any specific wines or regions, despite the natural presence of many Rhone Valley Wines. You’re more likely to come across enthusiasts rather than budding professionals at a weekend initiation. Wine University also opens its doors to business tourism, e.g. team building or incentive travel in English plus seminar rooms for their more mundane corporate work. For those willing to devote less than a day to educating their palate, there are occasional classes in tasting cheese, olives and olive oil or beer.

Some say that there is no pleasure without knowledge while others feel that knowing that you’ve enjoyed yourself is knowledge enough. I’ll take both as companions as I pursue my own wandering approach to a wine education.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

– Return to Part 1 of Drome Provencale: Eat Like a Sixth Grader, Drink Like a Wine Enthusiast
– Go to Part 3, Drome Provencale: Medieval Towns, Castles, Lavender and Silk

Part 2 endnote: More Rhone Valley name-dropping

Planted more or less from Vienne (just south of Lyon) to Avignon, Cotes du Rhone (including Cotes du Rhone Villages) vineyards extend along both sides of the Rhone River, increasingly to the east as one head’s south, with many appellations along the way.

Concerning the red wines, which predominate, the northern portion of the valley, from Vienne to Valence is known for its expression of Syrah/Shiraz grapes from Vienne to Valence (e.g. Côte Roie, Contrieux, Chateau-Grillet, Saint Joseph, Hermitage, Cornas, Saint Peray). In the southern portion, from Montelimar to Avignon, there’s a dominance of Grenache along with some use of Syrah, Mourvedre and other varieties (e.g. Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, flaring off to Tavel).

Transforming grapes grown over 60,000 hectares (nearly 148,000 acres) and divided into 6000 winegrowing business, the Rhone Valley produces 334 million bottles per year. More details about this long vertical wine region along the route from Lyon to Avignon can be found here.

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