Andrea and I started our journey with a much-needed out of wine experience in Scotland on the Great Glen Way with our friends, Reuben, Bella and Benjamin Weininger. I admit that after seven months in Italy it was nice to be in a country where both of us were fluent in the local language; although sometimes Italians speaking Italian are...[ read more ]
On the night of our visit to Les Carrières de Lumières and Van Gogh’s asylum, dinner started at ten. By then I was starving and as luck would have it, it was yet another Provençal feast. There were as many oysters as I could eat, pulled from the Mediterranean, and they were delicious yet some of the saltiest I’d ever...[ read more ]
I went down to the kitchen on the morning at La Fabrique and there was a huge pile of baguettes that Sonya had brought from the baker’s long before I woke. It was a heaven of the best bread in the world and I wanted to just hug all the loaves to my chest like a cluster of little friends....[ read more ]
It was time to head south for Provence. We had a hundred and thirty-miles to go to reach the legendary La Fabrique, in Graveson, a place I’d heard Ted talk about for many years, and while it’s normally a two hour drive, it was the Friday before Easter, so we were looking at more like three. We quickly hit Los...[ read more ]
I was jolted awake in the morning by a banging on the iron gate of my ancient Airbnb, followed by more knocks on the front door. I got out of bed in just my boxer briefs and immediately saw three police officers in black fatigues just outside the window on the tiny porch. One glanced over at me, and I...[ read more ]
As evening approached, we were on our way to see Ted’s good friend Nico Rebut, a former sommelier of great talent and repute who has since become a very successful wine distributor in Paris. Each week, he makes the five-hour drive or train ride from the Alps to Paris, his primary market and where he also consults quite a few...[ read more ]
Ted comes from a deeply religious background and after he left the fold, he shifted his faith to that in nature, and he believes that the most conscious winemakers cede control to this bigger force. But as Masson had touched upon with his need for flexibility during tough times, this clearly presents a quandary when people need to pay the...[ read more ]
Masson took us to his production building and gestured quickly at his variety of medium-sized wine tanks (none of his wines are vinified or aged in oak barrels) before leading us into his cellar, a dark, ground-level little room adjacent to the one with all the equipment. The walls were roughly spackled, with rounded corners to the ceiling, giving a...[ read more ]
Just to the south of Apremont is Mont Granier, a colossal roughly-hewn trapezoid of limestone with a thick evergreen forest at its base. Its sheer cliffs suggest the usual erosion and fall away, but in 1248, the entire twenty-three hundred foot north face of the mountain broke off. The resulting rockslide rumbled across many miles, destroyed five villages and killed...[ read more ]
On my third day I woke to find Ted and Andrea quietly pecking at their laptops in the living room, having already gone for a run down along the quays. I made myself some eggs and pod coffee, ate the last of our bread and not to be outdone, banged out a quick workout with my TRX in my room;...[ read more ]
