I took this photo last week while on a Chateau Tour of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. It’s harvest time in the south of France and basically all rules and norms go out the window and three weeks of organized chaos sets in. I’m sure this magnum at Domaine de Beaurenard will come in handy as the workers approach the end are in need of some kind of respite.

- Brian

Have you ever felt the urge to drop everything- job, mortgage, responsibilities - to travel around the world? Some people might call that a mid-life crisis, others might say it’s wanderlust, but for most it is just a pipe dream that we can satisfy with escapism fiction like Eat Pray Love. For our friend, Betsy, who recently joined us for a “Chateau Tour” in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, it is very much her reality. This vivacious, funny, and brave American woman quit her job, left town, and has been traveling Europe with the goal to do one thing a day that scares her. She has been documenting her scares and successes in a blog called “One Thing a Day That Scares Me.” It is a bucket list of sorts, where she tackles fears like driving a stick shift in France and overcoming her fear of heights by riding in a hot air balloon! We enjoyed hearing about her adventures while tasting some wonderful wines in Chateauneuf-du-Pape and admiring the vines dripping with ripes grapes almost ready for the harvest. She captured the region and three wineries we visited in some amazing pictures- with her iPhone using the Hipstamatic app no less- and is sharing them with us here. In turn, we would like to share with you the story of this incredible woman and her whirlwind journey to overcome fear in her life. Because that is inspiring.

Read about Betsy and her bucket list at One Thing That Scares Me

Brian and I recently visited the renowned Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine region for a chateau tour with a happy newlywed couple. Chateauneuf is renowned for its full-bodied red wines and we tasted many a wonderful red that day during the full-day tour to five different vineyards. One of the highlights of the day was a visit to a well-known vineyard where we were able to do a vertical tasting of 4 reds from 2004-2008. It was remarkable to taste the drastic differences in the wine from just year to year.

Also at this same winery, we tasted a 2001 vintage that was made from grapes from over 100 year old vines! The blend of 70% Grenache, 20% Mourvèdre and 10% Syrah comes from vines on a site which belonged to the winemaker’s grandmother. The original vines were planted just after the phylloxera era in 1866. It is a remarkable, very concentrated wine that already has the appearance of slight brown coloration around the edges when viewed in the glass. It had a distinct taste of leather yet who knows what the tasting experience will be like in another 20 years. Though a memorable wine already, this vintage needs a few more decades in the bottle to really reach reach its full potential coming from such an old source in this legendary region.

It isn’t often that we encouter extremely friendly and enthusiastic winemakers when visiting vineyards in France. French winemakers, though by no means uninviting, tend to be always be passionately absorbed in their work with the vines or too busy (or just too reserved) to deal with tourists directly. However, we recently met a unique vigneron who breaks the mold!

During our recent visit to a new winery in the the Sainte-Victoire region, we had the pleasure enjoying the company of an energetic, animated winemaker named Thibaut (pronounced “Tibo”). He took it upon himself to personally show us around the grounds, cave, and tasting room. During the tour, we tasted wine directly from the massive, stainless steel tanks, meaning that the wine was not quite finished aging. Later, we had the opportunity to taste of the finished product; whites, reds and roses during a sit down tasting. We were blown away by the fact that this one winery produces FIVE different roses! It is surprising to find two different roses at one winery, let alone five! Each of the five roses are grown in different plots of lands, which account for their dramatic differences.

Here are some of the pictures from our visit.

The photos of this winery speak for themselves. During a recent Chateau Tour, we visited an inexplicably picturesque winery located at the foot of Mont Saint-Victoire. These were some of the most beautiful views that Brian and I had seen in Provence so far. Having lived in France for three and a half years, that’s saying a lot! Besides the surroundings, another thing that astonished us besides the surroundings was that we met the FEMALE winemaker of this particular winery. To meet a female vigneron is unusual because France’s wine industry is still very traditional and men dominate the business. Madame Jaqueline Guichot is a rarity, one of the 3 female winemakers in all of Provence. And this is a huge region!

Along with the olive grove lining the long driveway, they also have a sample rows of vines, eighteen in fact, to signs indicated the different grape varieties. We’ve only seen a presentation of vines like this in the States, in the France it is almost unheard of to have a small display several varieties in this manner.

Before the end of 2009, Brian and I took a group of students to visit Chateau Val Joanis in the Luberon Valley of Provence. This winery is where parts of the movie “French Kiss,” with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, were filmed. This was a trip down memory lane for me, as Dominic and I were married in the gardens of Chateau Val Joanis a year and a half ago! The IAU (International American University) students were given a tour of the award-winning gardens, the barrel rooms, bottling room, and a private tasting of white, rose, and red wines in one of the outdoor courtyards. We had a very nice host from Val Joanis who spoke both English and French. This is one of the few wineries in France that Brian and I have found which offers tours. In the United States it is common for wineries to give tours of their facilities, but in France this is pretty rare.

On our tour we learned a fun celebrity fact about Chateau Val Joanis… In the spring of 2008, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were looking for an estate to lease in the South of France. One day at Val Joanis, there was an unannounced helicopter that landed right in the middle of the vineyards. Brad and Angelina got out and asked for a tasting. Overall, it was a typical wine tasting experience, except for the helicopter landing! They were nice to the staff and lovey-dovey as they walked through the gardens. Rumors quickly spread throughout the Luberon Valley saying that Brad and Angelina had inquired about buying the Chateau/winery and that the Chancel family, who has owned Val Joanis for years, said “NO.” If you want you can check out this website which has pictures of the French chateau called Chateau Miraval that the two of them actually ended up renting for a few months with their kids and a few staff members. You can also check out the Val Joanis website (they have an English version). You might even recognize me in a few pictures. =)