Review of wine tour from Marseille

We joined with some others we met on Cruise Critic for a wine tour in the Provence area. The person who arranged the tour knew an American who lived in the Chateauneuf du Pape area who was a sommelier and owned his own vineyard and was willing to pick us up at the port in Marseille. We knew the travel from Marseille would be quite a distance, but this tour turned out to be one of the highlights of our entire trip. First we traveled to St. Remy. We were lucky to be there on Wednesday, a market day. St. Remy has a huge fruit and vegetable market, as well as a craft market. The market had everything olives (oil, olives, olive boards, etc.), honey, large chunks of cheese, purple garlic.

After looking around and sampling cheese, jambon, and olives from the various vendors, we headed to a restaurant in the southern Cote du Rhone area for lunch (Coteaux & Fourchettes). And what a gourmet lunch it was! The restaurant definitely deserved the Michelin rating it received. We sampled at least 4 different kinds of wine and learned all about the various appellations of wine, and how to swirl, smell, and taste the wines. After that, well it was time to visit a winery so we could sample some more wine! We visited the Vieux Telegraphe winery and again learned more and sampled more. We made it back to the ship with a few minutes to spare, but we were certainly feeling good.

A short video of our tour:

Thank you! That was enjoyable...loved the video! Will be in Marseille in a couple weeks...trying to figure out what to do!