Road trip for Vinologists E-Book

Anthony Mulders - De Beir

• Herausgeber: Brave New Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 81

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In the summer of 2022, Anthony and his partner Joey decided to drive from Breda to France and travel most of the country. The goal was to visit most of the wine regions and immerse themselves in the local wine culture. The result can be found here. Anthony Mulders - De Beir (1988) is a registered vinologist, blogger, educator, and consultant. In 2021 he founded the wine blog gettinghotforwine.com and worked as a sommelier for different restaurants and hotel chains. By Proefschrift Awards in Amsterdam he was awarded 'Sommelier of the Year 2022'. By his hand, the Tasting Booklet was published before. A handy tool that allows you to keep a clear overview of your own tasting notes.

Leseprobe

Road trip for vinologists

Road trip throughout the wine regions of France:

During my studies to become a vinologist, French wines symbolized high quality, yet predictable wines. They struck me as wine regions where time had stood still and came across a bit too classical and stiff. However, I always knew that France was the cradle of high-quality wine and if you understand France as a wine country, you will understand the rest of the wine world.

After graduating, my hunger for wine knowledge remained large and only growing by the day. I learned from experience, that you can only fully understand a certain region, the wines produced there and planted varieties, when you have actually visited the area. With this in mind, my objective is to learn as much as possible about wine by traveling to every wine region in the world, combine that with tasting the wines matching with local food.for me there was no better country to start with than France, Cradle to the wine world and only a few hours’ drive from my hometown Breda, in The Netherlands.

The road trip outlined

My partner and I decided to spend a three-week holiday to travel all the largest wine regions in France by car. Outlined the schedule went as followed: we would drive from Breda to the Champagne region, more specifically the cities of Epernay, Reims and Aÿ. From there to the Loire Valley, to visit the village of Sancerre and then west to the rest of the valley. After that further south to Bordeaux and spend a few days in the like-named city. Again, further south through the region of the Southwest, with the most important stop being the city of Cahors. Now in eastern direction, to the regions of the Languedoc at the Mediterranean. Then following the coastline to the Provence and Côte d’Azur, up through the Rhône Valley and Burgundy back to The Netherlands.

Unfortunately, this meant that we had to let the regions of Alsace, Jura & Savoie and the Beaujolais pass us by, for now. All recommended restaurants and stops are written at a certain point in time, so the information is subject to change.

With great courage and a healthy dose of eagerness to learn, we left Breda by car to start our epic trip!

I consider myself rather as a planner in big lines, than a planner in detail, while my partner is the other way around. However, he did let himself get carried away happily. As you are about to read not everything went according to plan and we needed to adjust a few things in our journey…

Table of contents

The road trip outlined

Table of contents

Champagne

The Loire Valley

Charente

Bordeaux

Sud-Ouest

Languedoc- Roussillon

Provence

Rhône Valley

Burgundy

Afterword and thanks

Sources

Champagne

Our trip started in the most sparkling region of the country, the Champagne region. From Breda you take the highway A16 in the direction of Antwerp, which will turn into the E19 at the Belgian border. The highway takes you via Antwerp to Brussels and Charleroi, where you can take the E420 to the French border. From the point of Northern France, the A304 will take you to Franceville and then the A34 towards Reims.Even though Reims is the capital of the Champagne region, we decided to make Epernay our first stop. Reaching Reims, you can take the turn Reims St. Remi to Epernay Centre. From there on it is only 20 min to the city.Breda-EpernayDistance: 357 kmDuration: 4h 20 min

Champagne is the name for the world renown sparkling wine and cannot be named Champagne anywhere else in the world. The three most common allowed grapes for Champagne are the red varieties Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and the white Chardonnay.The region is divided into four different subregions:

- Montagne de Reims

- Vallée de la Marne

- Côte des Blancs

- Côte des Bar

The subregion of Montagne de Reims lies around the city of Reims. Here high-quality Pinot Noir is planted on a soil of clay, marl, and sand. The Vallée de la Marne is situated around Epernay and is known for its plantations of Meunier grapes. The Chardonnay is widely planted in de Cote de Blancs, where the soil is mainly limestone on which the grape thrives. The area of Côte des Bar produces Champagne of lesser quality and is situated furthest from the core area. In the region there is only one appellation and that is the one of AOP Champagne. AOP is the abbreviation of the French name of a product of protected origin, this in the Appellation d’Origine Protegée. This means a protected title for products of a certain region.

We drove straight to Epernay in Vallee de la Marne, where the biggest house of the area is established: Moët & Chandon. Epernay and Reims are the biggest cities in the area and Reims is the official capital. However, in Epernay life is fully dedicated to this god’s beverage. Everything there is just screaming champagne. Well-known names such as Palmer & Co are to be seen straight away when you drive into town. A full street was named after one of the most prestige houses in the region, the street is called ‘Rue de Champagne’.

The Rue de Champagne commences with the large house of Moët and the statue of Dom Perignon on the courtyard. This famous statue has been built in honour of the Benedictine monk Pierre Perignon. The man that people claim who invented the method champenoise. This method is only used in champagne wines and can only be called that for sparkling wine from Champagne. This is about the second fermentation in the bottle that creates the sparkling character. Even though the monk did not really invent this method, he was very much involved in evolvement of quality for the wines in that era, so the house of Moet & Chandon have named their prestige champagne after him. A vintage Dom Perigon is meant to age and preferably drunk at least ten years after dégorgement. This means the removal of yeast from the bottle and closing it with the cork. Due to this long aging in the bottle a lot of ripe aromas occur like brioche, butter yeast, subtle acidity, and a fine mousse. With this process the champagne can be a perfect match with old cheeses and even lighter meat like pork and veal.

Walking down the street and seeing one big name after the other, made our mouth water is such a way that we decided to stop for a tasting at a house we did not hear about before. The first champagne we therefore tasted was one from the house of A. Bergere. We tasted the rose, Blanc de Blancs and an aged millisémé from 2012. The rose tasted like a sparkling orange wine with notes of orange peel and tangerine, while the Blanc de Blancs showed us subtle notes of white bread and yeast. The aged champagne gave of course notes of aging like oxidised apple, brioche, apricot, and a touch of honey.

For dinner we found a restaurant that had their terrace on a small walled-in square. Even though there were many other Dutch and Belgian tourists, the vibe was very authentic. They did not seem to know that much about champagne, but what they were serving was exquisite! The menu did not include names of champagne houses, but just taste indications like Brut or the type of champagne like Rose or Blanc de Blancs. Nevertheless, they served a delicious juicy salmon burger on baked brioche bread and buttery sauce. With this dish I had a creamy Blanc de Blancs, which was just a heavenly combo!

Chez FrançoiseGare Est51200 Epernay

A colleague recommended us to visit the house of Vincent Gobert in Romery, which was just a 15-minute drive from the centre of Epernay. Coincidentally we passed through the small village of Hautvillers, which is a little higher up. There we discovered the church where no one other than Dom Perignon himself was buried! For two wine geeks such as ourselves, it felt like we had just found a hidden treasure. This church, or rather this abbey, is seen as the birthplace of Champagne. Not only Dom Perignon, but also Dom Ruinart used to live in this abbey, this last one is known for the house of Ruinart. Perignon experimented with firm bottles made of thick glass, that could withstand the second fermentation and the pressure that comes with it. He is also seen as the inventor of the cork and the muselet, the wire cage that keeps the cork in its place.

After this coincidental, yet very interesting discovery, we found the champagne house of Vincent Gobert. To our disappointment however, it was closed for the day and apart from that there was not much else to do in the small village of Romery. We got past our disappointment and drove to the other large city of the area: Reims.

When comparing these two larger cities, there are some core differences between them. Epernay sticks out, due to the Belle Epoque architecture and the fact that everything there is centred around champagne. Reims is the larger city, a lot larger than I expected actually. A city of this size does have other matters to attend to, than only champagne. A different vibe runs through the city that contains a lot of architectural differences, that strangely enough reminds you of Antwerp architecture. Around lunchtime we arrived at a square called Place du Forum and were relieved that we did not see any tourists there, only locals. We loved it!Bistrot du Forum served us with a delightful Blanc de Blancs, which we are both very fond of in combination with a cheese and charcuterie platter. The higher level of acidity counters the oiliness of the charcuterie and compliments the creamy texture of the cheeses.

Bistrot du Forum6 Place du Forum51100 Reims