Virgile's Vineyard

Saturday, April 12. (Friends: Still testing. Trying to post with only pictures from one camera. That didn't work either. Hope you enjoy the story sans photos.)

Jerry and I both read the title book--Virgile's Vineyard, a memoir by Patrick Moon--about 8-10 years ago. I had always said that, if we were ever to go to the Languedoc, we would have to use this book as a reference point on the area's history and towns, etc. With that in mind, I reread it immediately before our trip. When Jerry picked Pezenas as the place where we would shed our jet lag and get our French "legs" and I discovered it was within a half hour's drive, I knew I wanted to spend one of our days here visiting the environs of the author and his friend Virgile Joly, the winemaker.

We started our morning with a walk into Pezenas to visit its Saturday "grand marche." It had less emphasis on food than we expect to see in a French market. There were lots of purses, lacy tops, slippers, gadgets, linens, soap, and jewelry peppered amidst the local asparagus and radishes and olives.

It was a fun and busy scene, but we decided it was time to hit the road to see the wine country of the Haut Languedoc.

We took tiny back roads as we headed north. We kept seeing allees of plane trees--one of our favorite things in France and yet another reminder that we're really here.

This area is more scenic than we were expecting. There are hills and high, rocky outcroppings. And there is a lot of open, uncultivated land. But rest assured that there are lots and lots of vineyards--some filled with gnarly old vines, some with tender new ones. The Haut Languedoc is clearly part of the bigger Languedoc-Roussillon wine region--which is the largest producer of French wines--so vineyards there must be.

We wound our way through villages and vineyards and made sure to visit Saint Saturnin, which is frequently mentioned in the book. We had no interest in being groupies, but it was hard not to get a bit of a kick out of seeing a few signs for Virgile's cave. We allowed ourselves the silly pleasure of having lunch at Le Pressoir, the favorite hangout of Patrick and Virgile. (Virgile's cave was not open, a problem we've encountered several times already, since we are visiting before "the season," which apparently begins in May.)

We drove through Montpeyroux, a well-known wine region, and up the Gorges de l'Herault. We ended our day of touring by visiting the Abbaye de Valmagne. It's unusual to find such an intact abbey. Many were used as rock quarries after the Revolution. This particular abbey was sold to someone who turned it into a wine estate and used the apse of the sanctuary to hold huge wooden barrels for fermentation. How wonderfully fitting to see this piece of history saved by wine.

Our day felt like a perfect blend of touring pleasures--walking to town and the market, seeing pretty scenery, traveling back roads, and getting some doses of history along the way. Just to end it on the right note, with our dinner we had a bottle of Virgile Joly 2010 Saturne, a very nice, earthy red that had the nose of the garrigue (or dry, scrubby area) surrounding the vines.

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