Coals to the New Castle

October 17

Today we visited the ville of Chateauneuf du Pape. That’s the new castle of the pope, maybe his summer home away from Avignon. It’s also a super-prestigious wine appellation in the Rhone Valley. 

So here we were in the south of France. Larry’s turf. And today, for a big change, maybe the only time it’ll happen, I got Larry’s ass unlost. 

But first we hit the road early to go to the Friday morning market in Carpentras, a few kilometers from Beaumes de Venise.

We parked on the edge of town and entered by the Orange Gate, a remnant of the old city walls. There were vendors set up everywhere in the narrow, medieval streets.

I had been talking one night at dinner about Joanna’s skill at cooking, especially fish, and somehow she was put on the spot to prepare a fish dinner Friday night. She found bonita and bought two. 

The seller cut them into steaks. The meat was red. Sort of like Roussillon ocher or the aged steaks of La Maison Gouin.

We also made a stop a large produce stand because Larry thinks one of the girls who works there is gorgeous. Joanna got a shot of Larry buying vegetables from her.

There were also vegetables and fruit. There has been a running gag here about pears. Joanna bought three of them at the market in Vaison the other day. Larry said we should buy more. I said three’s enough, a half for everybody. They’ll go bad. I eat half a pear a month on average.

Turns out, everybody here loves pears. So at Carpentras we bought two dozen. I think we picked up some more at the Carrefour supermarket on the way home.

We got back to put everything away, and set out for Chateauneuf du Pape sometime around 11, I guess. The Google map started us out on the same route we tried for Roussillon, sending us to roads that either don’t exist or aren’t marked. We had one false start and then realized we needed to head to a town called Courthezon, which is about two-thirds of the way there. 

The rest was easy. Actually, it was all easy for me because I sat there like a gangster while Wheels did the driving.

So we got to Chateauneuf du Pape a little after noon. The town is built on a hill, with the new castle on top. The actual chateauneuf isn’t so neuf anymore and all that’s left of it seems to be a tower and part of a wall.

That wasn’t what we came for anyhow. Larry called ahead and reserved a table for 13 o’clock at a cafe called Le Pistou. 

Le Pistou is up a hill. Most places are up hills here. This was a narrow street with a 20 percent grade. Maybe even straight up. But we got there. 

One of the specials of the day was coq au vin. I can’t remember the last time I had rooster in wine. This was going to be comfort food.

And it probably would have been, too, except that Le Pistou had run out of it by 10 to one. I was unhappy about that, but went back to the menu and ordered the next best thing, pork cheek in mustard sauce. Joanna had tripe sausage with the same sauce.

Because this is Chateauneuf du Pape, le Pistou served the local wine by the glass. Larry tells me that some of the producers of Chateauneuf du Pape are not turning out great quality wine. I don’t know. Any of the stuff I’ve ever tasted has been great.

Anyhow, I had a glass of red and another of white. The pork cheek overwhelmed the white, but the red was full of fun and held up just fine. It was also good with the bite I took of Joanna’s sausage. The pork cheek was very tasty, but the sausage was even more so. 

After lunch we strolled down to the tourist office for directions to some of the wine caves that Larry had picked out for us. They were all within walking distance. 

We stopped first at the Famille de Perrin store. This family has a range of wines, including a white that I buy at home under the name Vielle Ferme, or Old Farm. It’s made in the Cote du Ventoux section of the Rhone Valley. It isn’t officially a white Cotes du Rhone, but has the strong flavor I like, so I often have a couple of bottles in the fridge. It costs less than 10 bucks a bottle.

The company has other wine operations that climb the price ladder to the top of the line, a Chateauneuf du Pape called Chateau de Beaucastel. They had reds from 2012, 2005, and 2001 that ranged in price from 60 to 90 euros.

After sipping those, we walked over to another cave, Domaine Pegau.

Pegau is a clay wine pitcher, from which, we were told, the pope was served his wine. I don’t know if the wine was called Chateauneuf du Pape back then or not. The cave had a pegau on a shelf.

Pegau had a great, tasty white, which we wound up buying.  

Then we went to my favorite place, Eddie Feraud & Fils. There is a puppet with a big red nose outside the door. I had noticed it earlier when we drove into town looking for the parking lot.

Joanna took the picture of the day, a study in noses. All right, so the puppet wins this one, but at least I was a contender.

The bar was overseen by a laughing Provencal lady, and the wine-maker himself strolled in and offered us a taste of a reserve of some kind. We wound up buying a  bottle of 2012 white and one of 2011 red. Both cost less than 20 euros.

The wine was terrific. We wound up getting a couple of bottles here. I would have done that even if the lady hadn’t let me go down into the cellar.

It was great down there, dark, lined with oak casks, smelling of ancient mold and cobwebs.

Then Larry, consulting the map from the tourist office, led us up a hill and we started down a street full of wine caves, but not the one belonging to Jerome Gradassi, the guy we were looking for.

We backtracked, and Larry showed me the map. Here’s the Rue des Consuls and the street we want goes uphill opposite that.

I look at the map and lead everyone back. We don’t want to head this way, but off to the left. Look. There’s a sign. I can’t make it out exactly from this distance, but it could say Gradassi. And it did. 

Larry said, “This is going to make your blog.” I said, “It’s going to be the lead.”

Gradassi wasn’t there, but had posted a phone number. A man and his mother were standing outside with us, and he phoned.

Gradassi came to the door a few minutes later and let us in. We walked past more casks and cobwebs, but he had only one wine for tasting, and it was too young.

We backtracked to Eddie Feraud and Pegau, and that’s when we bought the bottles. Then came the big one. We went to Perrin. Larry tried the '05 and '01 again. We opted for the '01 as a gift to the family for having let us stay in their house. We’re going to spring it as a surprise with the daube on Sunday night.

We were getting tired, and Joanna was on the hook for making dinner, so we came back to the house. Joanna fried the bonita in grape seed oil with ginger, scallions, leeks in a sauce of wine and oyster sauce. That went with broccoli and white rice.

Went with? Hell, it was all superb.

We had that with lots of local wine, a Sablet white and Gigondas red, for instance.

This is really la plus belle Provence.

Be well, all.

Harry