Marseille…. Our trip to Chateauneuf du Pape

I think I write the same thing every time we sail into Marseille…. “OMG, I can’t believe how arid it looks, are we in France or sailing into Oman?”  On one of our previous trips our guide told us that the surrounding mountains look so baron because of the high winds…  Ok .. lets just go with that!!

Today we sailed in the shadow of our sister ship the Enchanted Princess…. Just a tad bit bigger than us.

Todays tour would see us driven up into the country side to Chateauneuf  du Pape, which most of you would recognize if you are a lover of French red wine.

Our first winery was Domaine de Beaurenard, a quaint small cellar that came with a “quaint small” tasting of wine…. Maybe we Australians like a tasting where we can sip enough to have swig around the palette in order to tantalize all of the senses.  One look at the price list and you can see that this will be what you would call a gourmet tasting. We were only offered one other wine to taste, and as nice as the wine was, it was not enough to have us part with our precious euros.

if you scroll in and see the prices, you can see why we didn't indulge 

interesting to see all these old wines on display

Our host was a little dry and unpersonable and quickly lost our interest when we realise there were no more tastings to come.

The second winery was in a  lovely castle, Domaine Mousset.  Well, it was like chalk and cheese…  Natalie behind the bar was a straight shooter, telling us as soon as we entered, she didn’t want to be photograph.  We were fine with that and respected her wishes.  In return she was much more personable than our previous stop, and was more than happy to let us any  wine we wanted, above and beyond the standard tasting menu…  Hence we walked out with a few purchases.

interesting art work at the Castle

The landscape is quite rocky, but makes a good mulch for the vines

excellent and interesting tasting rooms

great range of wines in both flavours and price

Bar minus Natalie

even more interesting artwork in the winery

just a small bottle

Above the village sits the ruins of a medieval castle, which is where we were dropped off to enjoys the views across the valley.  Lunch was at a lovely little restaurant perched on the hill.  The food and wine was excellent.

Lovely Lunch at Le Verger des Pape

After lunch we descended to the village below.  The streets and little lanes were dotted with lots of “Caves” selling the local wines and delicacies. We had quick walk around before meeting our driver who took us to just one more winery before we headed back to Marseille.

Mousset Barrot has connections with the previous winery that we had visited. 

It was a quiet and relaxed ride back to the ship where we shared our sail away with the Enchanted Princess….  Our little toots were no match for the Enchanted love boat tune as they well and truly left us in their wake!