The BEST WINE ROAD TRIP in France? Join me in the Southern Rhône Valley!

Welcome to Southern Rhone! Is there a more beautiful wine region than the Rhone Valley in France? Dotted along the banks of the Rhone River is one quaint town after another, connected by sprawling vineyards and stunning landscapes. The vines along this path produce a vast array of Côte d'Aron wines, from charming whites to fresh rosés and supple reds. But it's the people who make those wines that truly make this region special. They care about the land they cultivate and are working to preserve it for future generations. They're committed to honoring legacy, taking care of the environment, and innovating for the future. And there is nothing more exciting than a Rhone road trip. So welcome to Southern Rhone, and welcome to V is for Vino! Welcome to Avignon! Avignon is the official capital of Côte d'Aron wines. Not only does it make a great home base while exploring the region, it also has its own incredible sites and history worth checking out. The most famous? The Palais de Papes, or Papal Palace, which is the largest Gothic palace in the world. Sometime during the 14th century, Pope Clement V fled political unrest in Rome, and he brought the papal residence here to Avignon. Spanning seven popes, this was the seat of Western Christianity for several decades before the pope moved back to Rome in 1377. But to really understand Rhone Valley wine, we need to go a bit further back in time. Like way back. Located in the southeast of France, the Rhone Valley was formed from millions of years of volcanoes and tectonic activity. Over time, the valley was squeezed in between the massive Central Mountains and the Alps. All this wonderful history over millions of years made dynamic winemaking soils, ranging from clay, limestone, granite, sand, and big rocks called pudding stones. The valley stretches 125 miles from Vienne to Avignon along the Rhone River, which is the lifeblood of the region. It's been used throughout history for irrigation as well as transport. The Romans planted grapes in this area as early as 400 BC, but it wasn't until the 1300s that things really took off. The popes in Avignon that we spoke about earlier wanted wine produced locally in the region, so they helped cultivate vineyard land here. This is Pont Saint-Bénizet, a bridge made in 1185. While only a portion of it remains intact today, it used to be super important. At the time it was built, it was the only bridge where you could cross the Rhone River within 200 miles. This river is part of what makes the region so visually stunning. Small towns line the banks of the water and the hilltops nearby. Luscious lavender and olive trees grace the fields. Medieval castles and Roman history scatter throughout the region. But we're here for the vineyards and wine, and let me tell you, there is a lot of it. The Rhone Valley vineyards are the second largest AOC in France. And while the region is split into Northern Rhone and Southern Rhone, and home to about 30 different Appalachians, for this episode we're only going to talk about Southern Rhone. 95% of the wine from the region comes from here. About 75% of that is red, followed by 15% rosé and 10% white. The climate in Southern Rhone is Mediterranean, and the summers are warm and dry, which means heat-loving grapes like Grenache, Syrah, Marchand, Roussan, and Mouvedge flourish here. The land is mostly flat, which allows the mistral winds that travel through the Rhone Valley to cool down the region. This leads to grapes that can ripen well, but retain freshness and acidity due to the cool nights. But the real star of the region is the Rhone River, which helps vines by regulating temperature, reflecting sunlight onto the grapes, and bringing amazing soils to the area. While the Rhone Valley may make a ton of wine, don't be fooled. It's incredibly focused on the quality of the wine and taking care of the land. It's one of the oldest wine regions in France. And since the 1980s and 90s, when the wine region really found its popularity, winemakers have worked hard to both preserve the vineyards and wines for future generations. As you're going to see, biodiversity is a huge part of most winemakers' missions here. They do things like employ sheep in the vineyards instead of lawnmowers, encourage insects and animals to help bolster the ecosystem, pursue environmental certifications, reduce and recycle water, and a slew of other measures. All in all, this helps manage the land in a way that both increases the quality of the vines, while also preserving them for future use. To help me navigate all this wine, I needed someone who knew the area. For that, I contacted my friend Sarkis. Sarkis is your quintessential Frenchman. He grew up here in the Rhone Valley. He's cultured, he dresses great, and he's into classic cars. So naturally, I had him pick me up. Look who it is, the best-dressed man in France. He chose his 1957 Morris Garages MGA Roadster, a classic car, to explore a classic region. At Carré du Palais, we met a fellow American and sommelier, Kelly McAuliffe. Kelly has been working as a sommelier in this part of France for over 20 years, and may be the most well-versed American on the planet when it comes to Rhone wines. The Frenchman who moved to America, and I have the American who moved to France. So cheers to that. Cheers to that. Carré's got a change. You mentioned to me you were a male model at one point. Once upon a time. I was a lot thinner back then. Yeah, I was modeling around the world, and ran into a beautiful French woman, and as they say to people, she harpooned me, and I was too big to throw back, you know, and I didn't want to be the dumb American being invited to dinner all the time. So I got the Wine Spec Theater, I got Hugh Johnson's Atlas, and it became a passion. Speaking of passion, man do the French know how to make a cheese board. 18-month Comté, a local ash-rind goat cheese, a soft cow cheese, plus ham infused with truffles, aged chorizo, and trout crudo. We paired it all with Domaine de la Valerian, Couturonne Rose. Charles De Gaulle, he said, how do you run a country when you have more cheeses than you have days of the year? Starting with the Rose, why with the Charcuterie? We're at the end of summer right now, they go great with Charcuterie, they don't offend anything. This has got really nice acidity in this wine, so acidity is going to break through the cheese, it's going to work very well with the Charcuterie, and probably work excellent with the salmon as well. And what I do like about the Couturonne Roses is they have sometimes a little more weight than some of the lighter Provence styles, so I think a little better with food in my opinion. Couturonne Roses are versatile pairing wines. Because this wine was a riper, fuller style with less citrus and more red fruit, it went great with our board. It had the weight to match the variety of items, the acid to cut through the fatty trout and cow cheese, pair with the salty meats and comté, and match the acidic goat cheese. Sarkis was the one who convinced me to come here, he's like, there's so much to explore. What gets you excited about this region? So much. You know, the government body, the INAO, they came in and they really did their due duty, and they broke it down, and they go by the quality of the soil. In all honesty, the Rhone, bang for your buck, it's almost unbeatable in France. Really? It's just a steal. It's a good, yeah. True pleasure wines. I don't talk price on the show typically, but I mean I will say, anybody watching at home, you can afford every single wine we're going to taste on this trip. And I can't say that about everywhere I go, right? You know, obviously there are crews that you can get into, but you can stay in the Couturonne and the Village level and the Named Village level and just have fun. The next course was a lot of fun. A base of corn, shrimp, and onions, topped with a mandarin mousse and crispy shrimp tempura. And the wine? Domaine du Bois de Saint-Jean, Couturonne Blanc, which in this case is a Viognier-based wine. This wine is sick. It's crazy. Oh my gosh. Why in the U.S. we don't highlight the white Couturonne? Because everyone knows about red, how to pair it with food, but I think to be fair, the white is one of the highlights of the region. It's aromatic. It's peachy. It can be tropical. Down here in the south, we've got a ton of some. So you end up with these kind of like high sugar grapes and high sugar grapes are going to give you high alcohol. So when it comes to white wine, that's kind of unfriendly. So you have to be really smart. But the guys that make white down here that are really happy about making their whites, they're good. They're good. There's a whole bunch of grapes down here that they can use in their blend. But each one does something different to the batch. You know what it makes me think about is like, you know, in the perfume industry, you have the nail, right? It's going to blend everything, all the ingredients to create something for the nice perfume. Yeah. It's a science. The fruity floral notes played so great with the mandarin and sweet corn flavors, matched the weight of the dish, and the acid cut through the creaminess of the mousse. Our last dish was a vegan pumpkin risotto with roasted vegetables and seeds topped with a pea sprout and basil pesto. And it looked as good as it tasted. We paired it with a biodynamic Cote d'Orone, Mare de Liban's Hayam GSM blend. The Rhone cut their teeth on red. That's what they're known for. That's most of the wine production. So you can see the color already. This is going to be fun. And as we say in French, digest. You smell the wine, you can pick up all of those really fun cherry, red fruit flavors that are coming, for me, coming through big time. And yet it's got like a lightness of being. There's this freshness and like crazy drinkability. So for those vegetarians, those vegans, those people like that, you've got a wine here that goes beautiful with pretty much a 100% vegetarian dish. Like I said, there used to be maybe a school of thought that these were always rich, really heavy, really tannic wines. I wouldn't describe this as that at all. This is medium, medium plus body. There's great acidity to it. This is very, very pairable. Floral, juicy and herbal. This fresh GSM blend matched the weight of our dish while still retaining enough acid to contrast the richer risotto. And the herbal floral flavors in the wine loved the green herbal pesto while also contrasting the smoky roast veggies. In general, roasty and grilled flavors are such a great match with Cote d'Aron reds. Gentlemen, thanks for joining me for lunch. It is my pleasure. It's an honor to be able to help someone like yourself promote the Rhone. People need to drink more wine. I'm doing my best. All right. I'm going to get them all on board. I promise. Lunch was great. But if all this talk of Cote d'Aron and villages and crews is making your head spin, don't worry. We're going to chat about it right now. You talk about places where you can go and do a road trip when you come to wine country. This may be one of the top ones because you can see the geology that's in the wine in the landscape. But you can see the slopes and you can see these giant, you know, mountains and you can see the rocks and the layers and different colors and slate and graphite. You can see it physically. So it's not like you're just going to the vineyard and they're saying, look at the soil. It's like, oh, you can see millions of years of geology in the landscape as you drive through it. And I think that's something that's really unique to this region. What is Cote d'Aron? I'm sure you've seen the label before when you've been out shopping for wine. Cote d'Aron is a place, a wine and an AOC. Let me explain. An AOC or Appellation d'Origine Controle is a government designation similar to AVA's in America or DOC's in Italy. It regulates where wine can come from and how it can be made. So a Cote d'Aron refers to the wine made from specifications defined by the government and tradition, as well as the region itself. There are four main AOC categories in the Rhone Valley. Cote d'Aron, Cote d'Aron Village, Cote d'Aron Named Villages and Rhone Valley Cru. The higher you go in the pyramid, the more specific area you have to get your grapes from and the more strict your specifications are. Cote d'Aron wines can come from the largest area, while Cote d'Aron Village wines must come from one of 95 different villages. The third level is Cote d'Aron Named Villages. And this is where things get really exciting. Behind me is a village called Seguray. If you buy a bottle of wine from the vineyards surrounding this village, the label would say Seguray and below it Cote d'Aron Village. There are 22 of these named villages spread across the Rhone Valley, and these wines tend to be a bit more complex and more age worthy than their Cote d'Aron counterparts. They have their own distinct soils, history, climate and therefore distinct terroir worthy of their own designation within the Cote d'Aron appellation. The top level are the 17 Rhone Valley Cru and some of the names you may know, like Gigondas, Tavel or Lirac. These wines won't say Cote d'Aron on them. They'll just have the Cru name listed. And it's up to you to know that these wines come from the Rhone. Some of the more recent Cru started out as Cote d'Aron Named Villages and then applied to have their specific Cru appellation, such as Rosteau and Cayron. And just like that, I'm in another village. This is Sablé, another beautiful Cote d'Aron Named Village full of great wines to explore. You won't find any Cru wines here, but here's the deal. While the Cru wines are great and definitely worth trying, they represent only about 20 percent of the wine produced in the Rhone. Some of the most exciting and value driven wines are coming from the other three categories. And so that's where we're going to spend our time this episode. Exploring the Cote d'Aron, Cote d'Aron Village and Cote d'Aron Named Village wines. Because the reality is that all the AOCs here have great quality wines within them. The AOC governing body does a great job of regulating quality at all levels for the consumer, from setting the rules of vineyard management, yield levels, vinification, aging and even the labeling. If it's labeled Cote d'Aron, you know exactly what is and isn't going into your wine and how it's being made. Sarkis and I drove to the eastern edge of the southern Rhone Valley to visit our first winery of the trip, Domaine de Montirius. There, we met the Soro family, who specialize in biodynamic wines and really embody the spirit of Cote d'Aron. Ten hectares of forests, all oak trees around the vine. So it's a microclimate. And then you have another kind of vibration, another kind of animals who come. Eric, what was special about this plot? At the beginning, it's only what you feel. We discovered that in the soil and subsoil is the best clay that we can find to produce red wine, to find on Petrus, on Romané Conti. The same type of clay. When you first came, you didn't know any of this. You just said, this feels, this feels right in my heart. And you turned out to be right. You know, the man who taught us the biodynamic is called François Bouchy. 25 years ago, when he came here, he said, OK, yeah, we can start biodynamically. And you see also, we change color, we change color. You see, in one year. In one year, it's true. It was a little bit brown and now it's dark. Look how it's subtle. It's kind of loose. It's a dark, deep brown. Yes, and smooth. You know, it smells like it's potting soil. More like in a forest. Rather than, you mentioned, it used to be kind of almost like a gravel like this, pale and lifeless. Roots of the vines penetrate the soil because it's supple. If it's like that, the roots can't go deep. No. And what they receive, what they attract, they have nutrients, they have minerals, they have worms, they have microorganisms. Sure. It's literally alive. Christine and Eric shared with me all they do to maintain certified biodynamic vineyards. Magnesium to supplement the vines when they don't get enough naturally. The same way we might take vitamins. Natural fertilizers, encouraging wildlife, raising chickens and even peacocks, which help attract other birds. They recirculate the water from the cellar through an underground purification process that they then use in their home. Bees. So many bees are encouraged to help keep the vineyard healthy. After my tour, I met with their daughters, Justine and Manon, to do a little tasting. So what do you guys both do in the winery? What are your roles? I'm Manon with the commercial part. I work in the vineyard. You know why I believe you? Hold up your hands for the camera. Yes, I'm sorry. Most of your wines, I think, don't use any oak, right? No, no oak. Oak can be great, but can also be a place to hide flaws. If you have no oak, you're just showing what the grapes gave you in the terroir. It's a mix of roussane, claret and white gournache. Do they co-ferment? Yes. It's an easy wine, a good for aperitif wine, easy drinking. You get the acidity at the end, you get the minerality that comes here at the back. And the idea is really to be on a fresh style. As we don't bring any water, we don't irrigate. The roots, they can really go down, go into the soil deep, deep down, and they get the freshness from the bottom of the soil. Kind of gravelly, rocky minerality to it, mixed with some fresh citrus. We are like gardens. Guardians of the places, guardians of the vines. And our job is to take care of it, take care of nature. From that, making a wine. I think a lot of winemakers in this region, they don't think, OK, I'm going to make a big winery and then in 20 years I'll sell it and I'll retire. They think, I'm going to make a big winery that I can pass on to my children. Not just the brand and the business, but the land. Look at the color on the red. Cote d'Oron wines often have this perception of big, tannic, weighty wines. I mean, this has the color of, I dare say, a pinot. It's cherry, it's semi-transparent. 60% of Grenache. Grenache, the best place is here. It's Cote d'Oron, south of Cote d'Oron. Cote d'Oron, yeah. Yes. We think that the key thing with Grenache is to harvest at the right maturity. We were mentioning before, there is no oak, no barrows. So it helps also to get this freshness. A wine without oak is like a beautiful woman without makeup. And I noticed, by the way, on the back of this label, you're saying no oak. No oak. You're saying it's Grenache, you're saying it's biodynamic, zero irrigation. Yep. What is the last one? Zero entrée d'origine animal. It means that we don't use anything coming from animals. But I mean, the amount of information on the label is stunning. When you look at some other wine labels in the world, Red Blend from France. So like, this is really amazing. It seems like there's transparency as to what we're doing in the vineyard. I think in Cote d'Oron Appellation, we have nothing to hide, as you're saying. So we just want people to understand what is in the bottle. Whenever I come back here, there's something unique happening. It's like when I drive around, I feel like I read a Marcel Pagnol novel. When I look around, I feel like it's a mix between Chagall, Renoir. I mean, look at the landscape. And I think there is a real awareness here for people to respect nature. When people come to Cote d'Oron, drink this wine, look around, meet the people on this earth, they'll have a different experience. The label of biodynamic can sometimes carry a voodoo-like stigma. But if you talk to the Sorrow family, they would tell you that to them, it's just a way of implementing natural techniques that work for their vineyard. Christine herself would tell you that what's right for Monterios may not be right for the winery in Washington. But she's proud that she shared their 25 years of experience with their neighbors and helped them mitigate problems with natural solutions as well. It's important to them. It's their passion. And the wine? Well, the proof is in the pudding. Hey, everybody, I hope you're enjoying the episode. I wanted to talk to you briefly about Vino VIP, which is our members only club. You see, we're a small team and we're completely independently produced, which means we can only keep making episodes with your support. So if the show has helped you or helped you pass a wine exam, or if you're just enjoying it, please consider supporting the small business that provided it and join Vino VIP, which is full of a ton of benefits. Anyway, you get full episodes ad free and you also get early access to all our episodes, including our YouTube videos. Plus, you get members only videos like behind the scenes and commentaries and full length interviews in our members section on our website. Once a quarter, we do a zoom session where we get to hang out and taste together and talk. We do raffles once a month for our members and we do a big yearly raffle. Plus, if you're a gold or platinum member, you get your name in the credits of an episode and all our members get access to our members only Facebook group, which is a great community. Membership starts at just five dollars a month, which is less than the price of a Starbucks coffee. Everybody thinks somebody else will step up and support and their support won't matter, but I promise you it does. So please consider joining if you have the means. And thank you so much to our existing Vino VIP members. Now, back to the episode. You could literally spend one day per village doing your little road trip, having a picnic, going to the little town, a little restaurant that's in each village and do a whole vacation just like that. The way that these villages were constructed so long ago and then they just adapted them for modern life, not the reverse. They left as a place that was meant to not have cars and the cars just have to adapt. That's why the cars are so small here. Southern Rhone is known for its blending of different grape varieties. Blending allows winemakers to make dynamic and complex wines each and every vintage. There are 23 different grape varieties produced here for the blends and three main styles of wine, white, rosé and red. White Rhone blends are some of my favorite white wines in the world. They only account for about 10 percent of Côte d'Iron wines, but that number is growing. And winos and sans alike love to seek them out. The main grapes are Grenache Blanc, Viognier, Marcon and Rousson. They usually have beautiful floral and herbal notes with peach, lemon and honey and beeswax character and just the right amount of acidity. They range from medium bodied and fruity and zesty to full bodied, waxy and rich to seriously complex and oak aged. It all depends on the blend and the winemaker. The best way to describe rosé wines from Southern Rhone is flavorful and fresh. They're plush and fruity while still being a bit spicy and tend to have more color and body than their Provence counterparts. They pair wonderfully with sautéed vegetables like Greek style mushrooms, goat cheese or even seafood curries or tomato based dishes. Finally, no conversation of Rhone wines is complete without talking about the reds. Red wines are what put Côte d'Iron on the map. And while there are about a dozen red grapes, there are three that are by far the most common. G.S.M. It stands for Grenache, Syrah, Mouvedre and it's the blend that made this area famous. Grenache adds your acidity, alcohol, red fruits, herbs like thyme and rosemary and plush character. Syrah, which is native to the Rhone, by the way, adds blue and black fruits, spice and meatiness and Mouvedre adds tannin, backbone, floral notes and finish. Together, they make a complex, dynamic wine like a three piece band rather than a solo musician. For a long time, Côte d'Iron reds were known as richer and tannic in style. But the new wave of producers are using more Grenache in their blends, picking earlier and making supple, balanced, fresh styles that are higher in acid and great for drinking immediately and pairing and are a killer value to boot. The Rhone Valley is perfect for a road tripping adventure, so I was grateful to have a fun car to do it in. There are 14 different wine trails here and dozens of villages to explore. Some, like Vaison La Romaine, are built right into the walls of the rock. It looks like something right out of a fantasy novel. You'll find Roman ruins, medieval churches and the hum of modern living all within a few blocks. Two thousand years of history married into a single village. Each Tuesday, they have a market. So Sarkis and I explored the town and got some ingredients for a picnic lunch to bring to our next winery. But first, we could also start with a coffee, by the way. How many should we order? They always want coffee. So four or five, I would think. Word of advice. Don't let me loose in a French market. The best basil in the world. Best in the world. That's a big claim. Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's really good. All right, Francisco. Seriously, don't don't do it. Oh, we should get some olives. Yeah. You have to try this one. It's like it's a specialty. Oh, it's good. Can you put a couple of those on top? Look at the sausage cart. 10 euro for four. Yeah. I mean, how do you pass up a deal like that? I like pepper. I think we should get a pepper one. Herbs, dry, so sour sec. Oh, you know, I didn't see the duck. Sorry, I like the duck. Cheese in France is like oxygen. It's everywhere and you can't have a picnic without it. You think this is the cheese guy? Do you have any preference? No, I love everything. OK. Wow. That kind of a guy. Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm great. You want to try? Bonjour. Wow. So his parents were doing the same job. Second generation jam maker. Very French. OK, OK. Baguettes. And I'm leaving. But what about the nougat? I love the original. You want some? Give me a small. Kidding aside, I always love how seriously France takes food. No matter where you are, every item we eat each and every day had a human being and sometimes an animal behind it. France always reminds me to approach that artistry and sacrifice with the reverence and appreciation it deserves. In the oxymoron that is the north end of Southern Rhone, you'll find Domaine de Cousignac, a little oasis that's been protected by seven generations of the Pommier family. Raphael Pommier is the current guardian of the land and winemaker who makes what he calls bottled humanity, a.k.a. wine, on his certified organic land. What a cool property. How pretty it is here. It's very vibrant. It has a lot of nature around. The wine, in fact, itself comes from the terroir, you know, and the terroir is something sometimes we don't understand because it seems very complex, but in fact, it's just life. Sure. And when you go somewhere, you discover that this life comes from, well, the type of soil, the type of grass, the type of animals, see the bees here. Look at them. They love it. Yeah. They're drinking the water because the water comes from the well, you know, and it's nice. You can even pet them. Look at that. You're a brave man. No, because they are happy. They're drinking. What we have to understand is that when we have in our fields some life, this life has to be preserved, has to be maintained, and that for that, we need to know it. Sometimes we overcomplicate terroir. What soil is it? And what's the angle of the slope? The true meaning of terroir is representing a place in the best possible way and making the vineyard alive because it's a living, breathing organism. You have a self-contained ecosystem. For example, this grass here, this is wild fennel, wild peppermint. Oh, did you plant all this? No, they're growing naturally. It just happens naturally. Yes. And by maintaining that naturally between the vines, you create an environment that will give the terroir taste because the grapes nearby, they're going to infuse in this aromatic. We say that from wines near the ocean, right? They get salinity. So why wouldn't it happen with other things, with the plants and the herbs that are in the field? Exactly. But to get this grass, I need the insect over there to have that in my field. As we were in harvest, Raphael took me to the tanks to try some recently fermented juice. And then he told me about something he did to his wines during fermentation that I hadn't seen before. So where did you put the speaker? Over there and inside the tank. In the tank. You have the speakers and it plays 24 hours a day. Wow. For the entire time of the fermentation. That's right. He stimulates the yeast during fermentation with music. Natural yeast. I mean, it's alive inside. So by using the music, I stimulate the fermentation and I stimulate the yeast. In fact, the vibration are creating movements. I'm speaking to you. I vibrate my vocal cord. The, the air is vibrating and you transform that into information. So why not? Why not? Why not the yeast? I know what you're thinking, you skeptics out there. Does it help make better wine? There's only one way to find out. We prepared some foods from the market and got to tasting. So I like to blend at least three variatals because like, you know, a chair, it is stable when you have three feet. I like this number three, you know, the number of communication, the Trinity also, I don't know. I'm, I'm feeling attracted to this number. You do get a little bit of the best of all those grapes that you put in here, right? The floral and the apricot, tropical notes from the Viognier. What does the Roussan bring? I know the Roussan brings some spice, white pepper. You can also find some cinnamon, you know. A lot of times, some of those spice notes come from oak and this, any oak on this? No, right? No. Exactly. So you get this amazing dynamic spice component simply from the grapes. I harvest my whites only in the night. No heat, no wind, no oxidation, no sulfides. The Accordonic, it's a special cuvee that I created with a quartet of classic music. Grenache is for the shallow, you know, Grenache, it's full-bodied, it's opulent, like the shallow, okay? Then Syrah, well, the alto, very low on the notes. It's like the Syrah, very earthy too, very strong tannic. And then the first and second violin, they are very light, easy, freshness, fruits, you know, Senso and Carignan. Blending those grapes, but on top of that, we were putting inside the tanks, the music. I don't know if it's because we're talking about music. This is a pretty wine, floral, rose character. I get these beautiful, almost plummy fruits. Beauvête could be a rosé, it could be a nice dark red. Yeah. And that brings some, what you said, the floral, you know, style. And the other thing this gets is an herbal component. You know, Gary, the thyme, rosemary, herbal component that you get is really, really special to this region. Oh, that's really the trademark, what you said. You can also listen to the music. If you use your smartphone, you can have the music we used to play during the fermentation. So you can listen to the music while you drink the wine. Exactly. I love it. I mean, it's all from the beginning to the end, the music, the process. This is one of the songs that was played during this wine's fermentation. The wines are incredible, but I'm sure you want to know, is all this holistic agriculture, music playing and happy-go-lucky bees, does it make a difference? I don't think it's for me to say, because it's worth it for Raphael. And that's all that matters. Similar to music itself, what he does is magic. He makes wine out of thin air, coaxes grapes into existence from nothing, and turns them into an experience and a memory we share at the table. So preserving his family's land like this is important to him. It's important to me, too. I had a chance to try some of the crew wines while we've been here. But like, here's how I know I'm onto something. I went to a restaurant last night with our crew, and we said, hey, I told the waiter, here's a price point. Take any wine you want from the list and just make it from Southern Rhone, because we're here. And he didn't bring me a crew wine. He brought me a named Cote d'Orone village wine. So that to me says, oh, we found a little hidden gem here. You want the stuff that tourists aren't getting. The city of Valence is known as the Door to the South. Below that, you're in Southern Rhone, and above it, well, you're in Northern Rhone. And maybe one day I'll continue and explore that region. But for today, this is as far north as we're going to go. And that's OK, because here is where chef Baptiste Poinot opened his Michelin-rated restaurant Fleuveur. After studying under some of the top chefs in France, he opened his restaurant as a love letter to the region and its gastronomy. Sarkis took a stroll with the chef to learn more. I was born in Valence, and it's true that I'm very attached to my region, and especially to my city. What kind of message do you try to convey in your cuisine and your gastronomy? Well, listen, today, it's true that my cuisine doesn't really stop at what's happening on the plate. OK. The idea is to go beyond, to convey values too. We tend to source our products locally, and we're lucky to have a terrific territory for that, with fantastic small producers. And it's a daily commitment today to go to them and find these products there. What is your philosophy in the restaurant? The idea is to highlight everyone's talent today, rather than having a chef who dominates everything and who decides everything. Today, we're really in these values of sharing, exchanging, and highlighting the talent of everyone around me. OK. And you were also telling me that you didn't have a problem with having a feedback from each of your... Sure. Everyone has their say. I leave a lot of space for that, and the whole point is to be able to arouse an emotion at the table. That's it. It's about finding balance, finding textures. But to arouse an emotion at all costs. Perfect. Well, we're arriving at the restaurant. We're going to sit down at the table. OK, thank you. While Sarkis was chatting with Chef, I had a very important meeting on the other side of Valence. There are some names in the wine world that are synonymous with the region they represent, titans of their corner of the globe. Guigol is one of those names. This winery is instrumental in changing the perception of Rhone wines globally, and while they're quite famous for some of their high-end bottlings, I got to meet with third-generation winemaker Philippe Guigol at Parc Jouvet to talk about why a winery of their reputation still finds it important to make Côte d'Orone-level wines. So 1946, right after the Second World War. World War II, exactly. So that's an interesting time to start a winery, but... It's a bad time. Yeah. At the time, it was not very trendy to produce quality wines, and my grandfather was very focused on top qualities, top appellations, Côte Rôtie, Hermitage, Condrieu. Later on, Côte d'Orone came, of course, very important to us today. You have, obviously, cru wines, but you produce these Côte d'Orone wines. Why are these important to you? We believe that people discovering the Rhone Valley will not go for the most expensive wines. This wine is extremely important to us because we want to make sure that people will drink a simple Côte d'Orone with a high quality. Côte d'Orone is not a snobbish appellation. That is to say, you never talk to your friends saying, oh, yesterday evening, I drank a Côte d'Orone. Okay. Well, the difference with the Rhone Valley is that it's a humble appellation, but we completely refuse to produce humble wines. I think the Rhone wines are extremely balanced. You have this richness. You have this opening that is very typical of the Rhone, but you have the balance. You have the acidity. And this is linked to the blends, of course. And that is one of the beautiful things about all the Rhone blends, but white Rhone's in particular say, okay, I like the floral from Viognier, but I don't like the lack of acid. So we can boost the acid with your, you know, your Grenache Blanc or whatever it might be. And so you get these really balanced, complex wines, every vintage, because regardless of what grapes ripen better or worse, you can still make a great wine. Totally right. The name Guy Galle is known very well within not only the Rhone, not only France, but the wine world. You could have sold your brands, had a nice life in Saint-Tropez. Saint-Tropez is not as nice as here. Okay. That's a good answer. My question, why is it important to you to keep the winery in the family? Very simply because I'm not working. I have a passion. Yeah. And it's difficult to sell a passion to someone. There's one rule. You never force the new generation to take over. Sure. My dad never asked me what kind of job I wanted to do. He showed me by the example what he was doing. And I got extremely interested by, you know, the many hours he was spending in the vineyards, in the cellars, et cetera. I do the same with my kids. I have boys. They're 12 years old, extremely young. Uh, I don't know what they're going to do. Uh, I'm not going to force them to be winemakers or to work in the vineyards. They already ask a lot of questions. Dad, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? So I'm, I'm trying to build the passion. And it also probably, correct me if I'm wrong, but it allows you to dictate how the land and how the terroir is preserved. Especially when you live, uh, you know, in the Rhone Valley, when you're in a vineyards where you are a hundred percent sure that the same vineyard was worked more than 2000 years ago by Romans, you feel extremely small, extremely humble. We're a blip on the timeline. Exactly. So, uh, you have a role. The role is to carry on. The work tradition is extremely important in the Rhone Valley. We are a traditional vineyard. We are historical vineyards. And of course we are passionate people in the Côte d'Irone. One of the coolest parts about my job is how many people get to go to wine regions and meet the people who helped make the region what it is. So this was an honor. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Cheers. If you're a fan of the show about now, you're probably wondering where the Don't worry. It's not leaving, but it is moving from these travel episodes to our brand new show, Vino First, and I'm super excited about it. While most people pick a wine to pair with their food, if you're anything like me, you start with your wine and then you cook a dish that pairs. So Vino First takes place right here in my kitchen, where I take a wine of the day, talk about it and taste it, and then figure out its structure and flavors and how they would work with food pairings. Get it? Vino First. Then we'll cook a dish from start to finish that pairs with our wine. Dishes that you can do at home. And yes, these episodes will also include everybody's favorite segment, the Nerd Lab. Look for Vino First on our YouTube channel, and it'll be released in the months opposite our travel episodes. Let's get cooking. Sarkis and I met Maxine Chapudier for dinner. If you haven't heard the name before, know that Chapudier is kind of a big deal in the wine world. They're an iconic Rhone winery, leading the way in biodynamics for the region and focused on family legacy. All right. Now the meal can begin. Cheers. Let's talk about this wine. Belle Ruche. So it means beautiful, honey house. Does have some honey character. It's quite traditional in the Rhone Valley to have this honey taste because of the Roussel and Marsanne. But you try to balance that with the Grenache Blanc, with the hint of union claret, which brings some freshness to the wine. Laurel kind of on the nose, honeysuckle, and then beautiful stone fruit. One of the main characteristics of the family business is that we are strong believers of the whites in the region. The real gem of the Rhone Valley is the whites. There's your father, still involved in the winery. And then now you have you and your sister, right? There's my sister and I. She's the sharp one, so she take care of the commerce. I'm the youngest one. I left when I was younger and I wanted nothing to do with the wine industry. I discovered the world. I discovered how it works, obviously. And I was like, well, I'm such a stupid boy, you know, like what I have is beautiful and I have such chance. So I decided to come back and they opened their hands to me. Does the winery pass from your father down to you too? He's a man with a vision, as they say, when he will be 60. He will never retire, so he'll always be. He's never going to retire. No, I think I will retire before him. So many winemakers I talk to, they say, listen, if I'm lucky in my lifetime, I get, you know, 40 vintages in my career. And they're like, and that's not enough. So by having it be a family winery, you get the benefit of the 40 previous from your father and the 40 previous from their grandfather. And now all of a sudden you're building something that's really special. Almost forgot to mention our food. First course is called the sea meeting the earth, seared mushrooms and vegetables, clams and mushroom broth, a hearty dish for sure, which meant you wanted a wine with some fuller weight to stand up to it. Plus the floral fresh wine contrasted the earthy flavors and the juicy acidity cut through the salty shellfish. So is there anything you can tell us besides like the secret techniques of the family or anything that you want to share with us? The secret of the family is just to be lazy, you know. My father was telling me that the quality comes from the vineyard. And what you would do in the winemaking is just like diminishing this quality. So you minimize the human touch, basically. We try. Working very dynamically since 30 years now. I'm like a first in that kind of line of business, right? Like... We were among the first ones in France. I think it's not only something my family wants to follow. It's a global concern for all the Cote du Rhone. Nature is a very well-made tool, you know, like it doesn't need you to work. It's been working for a million of years. So whenever you're doing agriculture, you're breaking, in a way, this balance. It is important to understand our living balance and try to work along it rather than against it. What's the difference between a Provence rosé versus Rhone rosé? Having a higher proportion of Cornache in our rosé make it so distinct from Provence. Main difference would be the structure of the wine itself. For sure. I mean, I got, like you said, cherries, grapefruit, citrus, all the things we love. But as opposed to the finish being crisp and out, it almost has more length. And more fatness as well. Yeah, it's richer. It's a richer style of rosé. We paired the rosé with a local trout that was cooked beautifully. It also had some broccoli, more mushrooms and a mushroom beurre blanc. The trout melts. Try it. Eating butter. Yeah, it's like eating butter. I love how the medium-bodied, acidic, fruity rosé stood up to the trout and mushrooms, but again, contrasted the dish and brought something new to the table. This is what put the Rhone on the map. It's the GSM. Well, the GSM without the Mourvèdre. Back in the days, my father would love to put some Mourvèdre on to have bigger, really like structural wine. I won't tell him you said that. But now we try to go for like something more subtle in terms of structure. Oh, more fresh. Yeah, but we had this chat like two weeks ago and we were tasting the same wine and he was saying like, ah, this is bad because you don't have any concentration, it's any density. And I was like, wow, I love this wine because it's actually tighter, very fine, very elegant. The right vision is in between both of us. I get the nose on this. I get so happy. Fresh red fruit character. We talked about the herbal character that you get. Our last dish was a surprise. So this is a signature dish. So this is a pigeon. Surprisingly, like I always wanted to try this. This is pigeon. Pigeon. Pigeon in French. And it sounds better when you say it that way. Pigeon, let's say the French way. Seared pigeon breast and leg, butternut squash, yellow plum and pepper sauce. Pigeon, pretty delicious. Who'd have thought? The French, I guess. I don't think I ever had pigeon in my life. No, I definitely haven't. Oh, it's good. It's kind of sweet. By the way, this wine, no joke. What is this retail for? Not enough. That's the thing. Not enough. This is killer. As it opens up, I'm getting like that spicy, meaty character, smoky character from the Syrah, I would guess. Exactly. Don't sleep on these wines, people. Hard to beat for the money. The medium-bodied wine matched the weight of the dish. The spice and peppery character in the wine matched the gamey pigeon and pepper sauce, while the acid cut through the seared layer of fatty, salty meat. All the winemakers you will meet in your travel will tell you that, well, my appellation is the best. This is the same here. Le Coduron are the best. But what I'm saying, the difference is that it's true, you know. But for you, it's actually true. Cheers, something. I've always admired how the French are so proud of their culture, their food, their wine and their traditions. But I learned on this trip just how much effort they put into making sure that their legacy lives on, both in their families and the land that's given them so much in return. What was the reason that you were like, Vince, you have to come here? What was the thing that was like, you have to come explore this region? It's very simple. Coming back to the Coduron, I didn't want to highlight one specific personal story, but I wanted to show you the people, their way of living, how they respect the terroir, how they transmit this within the family. And I think, as we say in French, c'est aussi simple que ça. What does that mean? It's very simple. It's very, it's very simple. Yeah. It's a long way to say it's very simple. Every road trip has a destination, or does it? Have you ever really arrived or are you just regrouping until your next adventure? People thought they could drive by Southern Rhone because they already knew what it was. A classic region defined by what it did in the past. It had already reached its terminus in their eyes, but the region had more gas in the tank, more tread on its tires. It put on a new coat of paint and reinvented what a Southern Rhone wine was. Went from gas to electric. Let everyone have a look under the hood because it had nothing to hide. Swap some parts and made sure the region was ready for another hundred thousand miles and beyond. And man, would you look at her now? I hope you enjoyed Southern Rhone and we'll see you next time on V is for Vino. Hey, Ivan's here. Hope you enjoyed the episode. If you have a moment, follow us on Instagram. And if you really want to support, please consider joining Vino VIP on visforvino.com. It's our members only club with a ton of benefits. Thanks for watching and see you soon.