Wine Tasting and the Vendage St Martin de Fenouillet

This week is the vendage or wine harvest. Each village has their own vineyards, their own wines and caves. As you walk through the villages you can smell the wine being processed; a strong aroma comes from the caves. Most of the harvest is over and the grapes are currently being prepared.

Yesterday on a whim I drove to St Martin Fenouillet, another small village, to visit the village auberge. While there, Bridget who manages the auberge, offered to take us on a tour of the local wineries. There are three wineries in the village. Domaine Laguerre, Domaine Salvat, and Domaine Soula. Domaine Laguerre is currently being filmed by a British company to highlight their biological approach to making wines. Domaine Soula is owned by Domaine Gauby, who is developing quite a name in this region . So there exists quite a bit of rivalry between the two wineries. We arrived at Soula to see if we could get a tour. Up until that point, I did not know Soula was owned by Domaine Gauby and as we walked past a truck loaded with grapes down into a cellar with all it's machines working. I thought they were sharing cellars or something. I kept snapping photos until some guy down in the cellar said he did not want his photo taken.

A bit later, Bridgette arranged a wine tasting to go with the lunch her husband was going to prepare. And I was surprised to see the man in the cellar who did not want his photo taken. He had brought some wine from Soula to taste. It was a white wine called Trizone. It had a dry sharp taste and it was their first white wine made in 2004. The grapes were 80% Caringnan and 20% Grenache grapes. The caringnan grapes gave it a sharp and spicy taste.

Bridgette husband, Husein is the cook for the auberge and made a delicious meal. The salad was a typical green salad with pecans but it was topped with goat cheese wrapped in a honey flavored phylo that had been deep fried. For the main entree was pasta drenched in garlic and basil with mussels, squid, and shrimp. Delicious. Probably the best meal I have had so far.

Later that day, I learned that Soula is owned by Gauby. Their red wine was not enjoyable but their 2004 Trizone was good.