France Day 8 - A dizzying day of driving, directing and dining in Provence

Our first full day in Provence! Marie had a nice breakfast for us when we returned from our morning jog: bread, a lazy susan full of jellies and butter, fruit and yogurt. Definitely getting used to this cuisine! Chatted with the three Canadians also staying here, compared itineraries and got ready to hit the road.

We headed north to Vacqueryras where the wine at one estate smelled like a port and was sweeter and fuller than any wine we had tasted so far. Wines from this maker were made up of granache, syrah, cinsault and moverdre. I just love the blends!

Then we hit Chatenauf du Pape where due to the climate, the grapes are grown in rocks. We took a lot of pictures of the vineyards (Chateau Mont Redon being one) and tasted some incredible reds (and a few whites which are not too easy to find in this area). I can certainly see why this wine is a bit more expensive than others we have tasted on our adventure.

We decided to picnic in Seguret, a hilltop town. Iti is so wonderful that you can just pull into a town, find a spot and set up a peaceful delicious meal! Our lunch was some cheese, bread, olives, olive tapenade, an olive, cheese and onion pizza (sense a theme here?), and stuffed bread with sweet tomatoes and yellow and green peppers. Still in awe of this practice and loving every minute of it!

After lunch we headed to Vaison La Romaine and a bunch of villages in between. It is my M.O. to always squeeze in a stop to a church or historical site, so I snuck in a visit to the ruins in Vaison La Romanin. Cool but not nearly as impressive as Roman ruins. I stopped taking tasting notes at this point and decided to simply enjoyed the wine. The amount of ground we were covering was dizzying!

On our journey, we stopped at a co-op in Vacquareyes and took some photos of farmers unloading their grapes. It is pretty amazing to see the process behind something that brings us so much pleasure! And I love how the co-op is there for the small farmer.

Another stop was in Beaumeand de Venise. At this point, I needed a snack and we stopped in a little patisserie to grab a pastry. The woman was in the midst of helping us when we hear in the background the theme song to Law & Order. We started laughing and said "oh, Law & Order fan?" - the woman seemed embarrassed to get caught enjoying her American guilty pleasure but I found it adorable, perhaps because her pastries were so light and flavorful!

We also hit a wine shop in town and spent some time talking to the very knowledgeable saleswoman who educated us on a few regions we were not able to get to in our jam-packed itinerary. The man there was mocking American "McWine" and saying how it is basically fruit bombs. She corrected him and said there were some quality wines and we were there to learn about French wines out of respect and appreciation. Our heated friendly debate ended in us walking out with a few bottles and the laughing with the two of them.

When we finally got back to St. Remy, we had a hard time getting into a restaurant and spent some time arguing and wandering around aimlessly looking for a place to eat. We settled on an Italian-inspired place that not one of us can remember the name of. It seemed a bit touristy, but we were hungry and out of options.

I had what was called a "greedy plate" which was basically a sampling of appetizers: fig wrapped in pastry, foie gras, eggplant bread and tomato soup. The fig and the foie gras were the standout items here - the foie gras is so different than what you get in the US - I am forever spoiled.

For my main course, I went with a pasta with pistou and almonds. Basically, it was fusilli in a cream sauce with a bit of pesto or I should say the French version of pesto. It was tasty but a bit too rich and creamy for me but since I've been going for broke the last week plus, why quit now?

Our wine of choice was a 2003 Chateau Vannieres from Bandol which is east of Cassis (one of our destinations) on the way to Marseille.

This was a good meal (they all were) but not a standout on any front. Again, this restaurant seemed to cater more to tourists and was a bit more "Americanized" than we were looking for...but little did we know that Day 9's meal would more than make up for it!