Knowmark Travel

Toulouse Plus 2005: Lagrasse

Sunday, 2 October 2005

Today was mostly a travel day. We did our usual morning things and then hung about the hotel packing and relaxing. After our usual lunch, we set out for our next stop, a small town (about 600 people) called Lagrasse, which is in the Corbières wine region between Spain and the Mediterranean. On the way, we made a small detour to a winery which was, unfortunately, closed on Sundays. For the entire 150 km trip we were in sight of a vineyard.

We found a great restaurant for dinner tonight – Les trois grâces. It is only about 100 metres from our nice little gîte (apartment) in the village centre. We have two rooms on the ground floor (separated by the hallway leading to the upper floors where the owners live). In effect, a mini-suite, which we enjoy.

Dinner was excellent – we both had the plat du jour which was coquelot rôti au parfum de reglisse – very different and very good. We ordered a 50cl bottle of wine only to realize once we had it that we’ve drunk it at home and possibly still have a bottle of it in our cellar! It was good, but broke our rule of only buying wine that we can’t get normally.

Today’s weather: a not uncomfortable 1.5.

Monday, 3 October 2005

While the weather was somewhat marginal today (a solid 1.5 on the Knowmark Weather Scale), we got quite a lot of sunshine, which is the most important thing. Because the village is quite small, there is only one boulangerie, and today was its weekly closing day. So we drove to St. Laurent de la Cabrerisse (about 10 minutes away) for our daily bread and pastries. The bread turned out to be particularly good.

Since our gîte has a washing machine, we got caught up with some laundry. And, we visited a winery, because it’s almost impossible not to! We went a few kilometres north of Lagrasse to Château de Vaugelas (near Camplong d’Aude) and tasted three of their wines. All were impressive, so we bought a couple of bottles: one to drink here; one to bring back.

And, dinner again at the Les trois grâces: we shared an assiette des trois sauveurs – toasts with three different (all delicious) spreads; Steve had confit de canard; Susan had admired the brochettes des supions the night before and had her heart set on that. We had a pichet of red wine which was very good – something from nearby Camplong. We will definitely be returning here for dinner tomorrow night!

Tuesday, 4 October 2005

We were kind of lazy this morning – we had originally planned to head into Lezignan-Corbières to the market and then swing back around by a winery or two, but then we suddenly realized that it was only Tuesday and the market there is Wednesday morning. Unable to locate a Tuesday market as close as we liked, we ended doing some catching up on our trip journal before heading out to Château La Sabine where we were unable to buy the wine we were looking for (Juni Pérus 2002) as it hasn’t been bottled yet. We tasted the 2000 vintage of the same wine and enjoyed it a lot, so we ended up with a bottle of that instead.

The weather wasn’t really conducive to having an outdoor picnic, so we headed back to town and had our picnic indoors instead. The goat cheese was local, although we didn’t buy directly from the producers – not quite as good as Didier’s (near Lodève) we think. After lunch, we set out to find more wine and some cheese from the source. We ended up tasting (and buying) some Château Gaubert Cavayé 2003 and had a very nice chat with Corinne and Gilles Cavayé who just finished their vendange (grape harvest) four days ago. The smell of fermenting grapes was everywhere. Yum! (No luck on the goat cheese unfortunately …)

Dinner tonight was again at Les trois grâces where we had reserved a table on the advice of the waiter last night. (Apparently it’s the only restaurant in the village which is open on Tuesdays and so it tends to be rather busy.) We both had the plat du jour which was filet mignon du porc avec sauce armagnac et pruneaux; it was our best meal of the three there and that’s saying something! We had a very nice after-dinner chat with a couple who live nearby occasionally (he is Flemish, she is Dutch). Unfortunately, this will be our last night eating here as they are closed both Wednesday and Thursday. We are going to try to find some cêpes in the next couple of days so we can make our own dinner on Thursday night (our waiter has made a recommendation for Wednesday, so that is taken care of!).

Another day of so-so weather (a nice 1.5 on our scale). However, the forecast would indicate that things are on the upswing.

Wednesday, 5 October 2005

Because of the inclement weather this morning (it turned better, rating 1.5 for the day), we delayed our trip to Le Château de Termes and went to the L’Abbaye de Fontfroide. It is a huge complex in a lovely setting, as many of these old religious (it no longer functions as such) sites are. It was started in the 11th century. We strolled around some of the grounds in the slowly lifting mist for some time. Then off to Château la Domèque for some wine before slipping into Lézignan-Corbières to catch the end of their market. We were able to get the necessities for tomorrow night’s dinner (Susan is cooking at ‘home’) plus supplement our supply of chèvre from a local supplier (Ferme de Carrus) whose farm we had tried to visit yesterday!

After lunch, with the weather clearing in Lagrasse, we headed south (back into the mist) to visit one of the many Cathar ruins in the area – Le Château de Termes. Along the way, we rounded a corner and saw the stunning Château Durfort. Le Château de Termes was built in the 12th century and used until the 17th century when it was ordered destroyed. The remnants are still impressive, as was the fact that we climbed (what seemed like straight up at times) steadily for 30 minutes to reach the top! It was not our intention, as the task seemed most daunting, but as we got closer, we just kept going. It was well worth it, with some incredible views which don’t show in the photographs because of the vastness of the area (and, the remnants of the misty day).

We had a very nice dinner tonight at les Temps des Courge. We shared une assiette de crudités and each had tartiflette “les corbières” which was described as pommes de terre, lardons, oignons frites, crème fraiche, fromage de ferme Merron fondue et gratinée. Very rich (neither of us could finish it) and very delicious!

Thursday, 6 October 2005

Today’s main project was lunch near the (Mediterranean) sea and the weather cooperated nicely by providing us with a 2.5 rated day. We set out to visit the Fitou wine region which consists of two sub-regions: Fitou Maritime and Haut Fitou. After stopping in La Palme to taste and buy some Saint Pancrace 2001, we headed towards Leucate. This town is located on a peninsula which connects directly with the Mediterannean, unlike much of the coast around here which borders on various etangs. We ended up at La Franqui which has an incredible beach with surprisingly few (we counted 14 at one point) people on it, given the beautiful day. We spent quite a bit of time just walking in the sand and surf as the tide slowly came in, enjoying the sun.

After a while, we moved on to Leucate for lunch. It’s a pretty town with many buildings having brilliantly coloured shutters. We chose to have lunch outside at Le Bistrot de la Place – a trio of tapas: calamari à la romaine, salade des anchoies frais marinés and gambas façon leucategais. This was naturally accompanied by a demi-pichet of red wine, a particularly decent one.

On the very scenic return journey to Lagrasse we tasted and bought more Fitou wine. The entire Corbières region is beautiful. Very rugged, but laced with arable patches in every little valley (mostly vineyards). It can be quite spectacular in places. Dinner was prepared by Susan in our little kitchen: an omelette made with cèpes and local chèvre both of which were bought at the market in Lézignan. An avocado-tomato salad and some excellent Corbières wine completed the meal. The rest of the evening was spent packing – tomorrow we begin the last phase of our trip!

Toulouse Plus 2005: Lodève

Tuesday, 27 September 2005

We experienced what may have been a first today – we were actually on the road 20 minutes earlier than our planned departure time! Usually we leave at least 20 minutes late, no matter what we do 🙂 Today we travelled the shortest route (according to Michelin) from Moissac to Lodève which was very scenic but quite wiggly. Much of it goes through the Parc Naturel Régional des Grands Causses which consists of a largish chunk of the southernmost portion of the massif central.

Lunch was eaten on a bench in St-Sernin-sur-Rance where the view was impressive. Not too long before getting to Lodève, we crossed a pass and felt that we had entered another world. The landscape became much rockier and drier and the vegetation changed completely. It felt very much like places we’ve been in Arizona.

Our suite at the Hôtel du Nord in Lodève is huge and suits us very well. Tonight’s dinner was across the street at Sauveurs du Grand Sud which serves Moroccan-inspired cuisine. We both had one of their grandes salades, Steve’s with brochette d’agneau and Susan’s with merguez. All of this was washed down with a 50 cl bottle of nice Côteaux du Languedoc. The weather today was a very pleasant 2.5.

Wednesday, 28 September 2005

Today, it took us most of the morning to acquire the ingredients for our lunch. It consisted of the usual, with some important differences:

bread, purchased in Lodève prior to our departure – OK, not too different 🙂
olives, of the variety lucques – both black and green. These were purchased in St-Etienne-de-Gourgas, the village where they are grown.
wonderful fromage de chèvre made from lait cru and purchased at the end of a narrow, twisting, rough road high on a mesa from the man who made it, Didier Le Drogo.
delicious wine – Les Faïsses de Jean 2003 from Domaine Puech-Auger in Montpeyroux (one of the sub-regions of Côteaux du Languedoc). This was purchased from the domain right in the village of Montpeyroux.

Finally, we purchased a bunch of organic carrots from a fellow in Lagamas and ate our booty in the yard of the church there. This just happened to be a rather pretty building surrounded by vineyards and it was a great lunch.

Afterwards, we went to Domaine des Crès Ricards where they were in the middle of the vendange. There we tasted and purchased two wines: Les Hauts de Milési 2003 (the 2002 was a coup de coeur in the 2005 Hachette) and Cousin-Cousine 2004 which is a 2-star selection in the 2006 Hachette, which we just picked up while here.

We ate dinner again tonight at Sauveurs du Grand Sud where we both had a Moroccan style taboulé followed by tajine confit de canard avec olives, carottes et citron confit. It was delicious! The weather was a perfect 3.0 on our scale.

Thursday, 29 September 2005

We hope to attend a football (soccer) game tomorrow night in Montpellier, so today’s main task was to check out the route to Montpellier and see if we could get tickets ahead of time. But, we detoured along the way and visited Mas de Bayle, a small winery just east of Villeveyrac (and, only seven or eight km from the Mediterranean Sea). The vigneron eleveur (winemaker – grower) at Mas de Bayle is Céline Michelon, the fourth generation of her family to make wine there (since 1907). We had an extended conversation with Céline, who is most passionate about her wine (and her wine was lovely – we bought a couple of bottles of her Cuvée Odon 2003, to which Hachette has given one star). We have visited a number of wineries in France this year and it has been most heartening to see quite a few young people involved and in charge. It bodes well for the future.

By the time we finished talking to Mme Michelon, it was time for lunch. As has become our habit, we looked for a nearby church and found a suitable candidate in nearby Loupian, where we sat in the sunshine and enjoyed our repast in sight of the Mediterranean Sea and a vineyard nestled by the church.

On to Montpellier, where we checked out the Stade de la Mosson, where the local Ligue 2 club plays. Access was straightforward, but there were no ticket offices open today. We then scouted the return route to Lodève, which takes about 40 minutes on the main roads (which we seldom travel on, preferring secondary and tertiary routes).

Dinner tonight at Le Petit Sommelier, where we had a nice menú: cuisse lapin for Steve; agneau grillé for Susan. The wine was La Clape 2003 from Château de Marmorières, a pleasant Coteaux du Languedoc.

And, the nice weather continued (2.5 on the Knowmark Weather Scale).

Friday, 30 September 2005

We had two major items on tap today (which was lovely – a perfect 3.0).

The first was a longish hike above Lodève. We drove part of the way to the top of the Plateau du Grezac, which lies to the northwest of Lodève. After parking the car, we packed our lunch the rest of the way on PR 1, one of the local hiking trails in the area (France has an extensive system of trails – the GR system – and many local areas have their own smaller versions). It was quite an unusual environment, very broken country with stone walls everywhere. These walls were used in sheep raising in years past.

The second item was the football (soccer) game in Montpellier, who hosted Guingamp in a Ligue 2 matchup. It was hard to believe that both of these teams were in Ligue 1 just 18 months ago, before being relegated. They are now both desperately trying not to get relegated yet again, to the National (third) level of French football. A small crowd (including at least two Canadians!) watched a mostly listless match (there were some rousing moments, but they were few and far betwween) that ended in a scoreless draw. Nonetheless, the quality of play was superior to anything that we had witnessed live before, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Because of the game and travel, for dinner we just picked up some salad and a small pizza at “our” local boulangerie, which we had on the patio at our wonderful hotel before travelling to Montpellier for the game. But of course, we had a perfectly delicious wine to wash it down – some of the Les Hauts de Milési 2003 from Domaine des Crès Ricards which we bought the other day.

Saturday, 1 October 2005

Market day in Lodève! We love market day, as does most of the local populace. It is always a lively scene and a plethora of goods awaits. We mostly use it to get unusual food items, such as the wonderful Agen prunes and some different cheeses. There are also lots of fresh vegetables and fruits available, which we usually take advantage of. Today’s purchases consisted of: the aforementioned prunes, some fairly new fromage de brébis, pain rustique and some bananas and carrots.

After a leisurely morning touring the market and having a second café, we packed our lunch and headed just southeast of Lodève. We wanted to make a couple of winery visits after lunch, which we did. One of the places we went to (Château Vaillé) didn’t know that they had made it into the 2006 Guide Hachette. They told us that they’d received mail asking them if they wanted to buy the little collars for the bottles that announce that a wine has been chosen, but they were very confused because they didn’t think they had been! So, they were most interested when we showed them our copy of the Guide and read their entry very carefully.

We said goodbye to Blandine and Robert (the hotel proprietors) earlier today as they won’t be here tomorrow when we leave. They are extremely nice people and we have enjoyed our stay very much, in large part due to their hospitality. Blandine left us some special apéritif wine and some olives and gave us explicit directs to drink to their health that evening. So we did! When we poured the wine we noticed that it was from one of the châteaux that we had just visited in the afternoon! Considering the number of châteaux in this area, it was a pretty amazing coincidence.

Dinner tonight was once again at Sauveurs du Grand Sud – their food is just too good to pass up. Steve started with a salad and Susan with soup and for the main, we both had tajine jarret d’agneau avec pruneaux, abricots et pomme de terres and we enjoyed the same wine that we’ve had there before, Le Plo Dalia.

Another lovely day – 2.5 on our scale. We are enjoying the great weather while we can, because it looks like some very cold, wet weather is heading our way. But, we’ll worry about that tomorrow!

Toulouse Plus 2005: Moissac

Thursday, 22 September 2005

We have made it to Moissac in good order. Nothing untoward about our flights (other than a slight delay leaving Paris for Toulouse) or baggage. Moissac looks to be a lovely town (about 12,000 people) and our hotel is quite nice. Today has been gorgeous, a perfect 3.0 on the Knowmark Weather Scale.

We’re still getting squared around and will post some photographs in the next day or two.

Friday, 23 September 2005

Today was our first full day in Moissac. And, another lovely day – rating 2.5 on our scale.

After delicious pastries and coffee for breakfast, we wandered around town orienting ourselves. Later we had a small picnic by the Canal latéral à la Garonne which runs through town parallel to the river here (le Tarn). In fact, our hotel is between the river and the canal and we cross the canal every time we walk into town.

After lunch we entertained ourselves with a leisurely drive through the countryside where we saw many apple orchards and vineyards. Most of the local vineyards grow dessert grapes – the area is known for its Chasselas grapes which are small, almost translucent, very sweet and absolutely delicious. We stopped to buy two bunches from a farm on the road.

Dinner was inexpensive but somewhat blah – cassoulet for Steve, omelette aux cêpes for Susan and some red wine (vin de table), of course.

Saturday, 24 September 2005

Today is the first of two consecutive market days in Moissac – today’s market was great. We decided to buy a few items for lunch that we could take with us on a small (1 hour+) hike on both side of le Tarn (starting and ending at our hotel). We are looking forward to tomorrow’s market, as there is supposed to be an olive guy there with a huge selection (and, we are fresh out of olives!). Lunch components consisted of wonderful cabecou, a great local bread, olives, fresh carrots and tomato, plus a nice Gaillac wine (Château la Peyre 2002).

Our hike took us east on the north shore of le Tarn, crossing to the south shore on an amazing canal bridge (le Pont-Canal de Cacor). We were in the countryside in just a few minutes. The canal bridge (see photographs below) takes the Canal latéral à la Garonne over le Tarn! We lunched at the southern side of the bridge, after walking across. Just below was a huge sunflower field that was being harvested as we walked by.

This evening we dined at Brasserie au Bureau (which is a chain), where we had pizza! Great thin crust (just like Italy), but huge toppings (just like Canada). It made for a reasonable compromise and was the best dinner we’ve had here so far. We also ordered a bottle of wine (rather than vin de table) – another Gaillac, Domaine des Terrises 2003, which was rather good.

Today’s weather: 3.0.

Sunday, 25 September 2005

Today was the second consecutive market day in Moissac. Some of the same vendors were present, but there were many different ones, including the olive guy that we had heard about (see yesterday’s entry). So at Sunday’s market we were able to stock up on olives (required lunch fare), buy some more of the wonderful local plums and prunes for snacking, get today’s lunch cheese (more cabecou!), a Côtes du Frontonnais wine (Château Montauriol 2002, which is relatively near), and a few other odds and sods. Back to ‘our’ local boulangerie for bread (ciabatta today), which was also required for lunch.

Then, another hike (much shorter than yesterday, but much steeper) to the top of the small mountain overlooking Moissac which provides some wonderful views. Unfortunately, the day had begun to turn muggy, which made the conditions for photography less than optimal. The photograph (below) shows part of Moissac looking SSE. The large building in the upper left is our hotel, which is a converted mill (parts of which date from 1474). The bridge in the upper right (over le Tarn), is le pont Napoléon, built in the early 19th century. A sudden downpour found us making a rapid descent (we did have our umbrella), taking refuge in a former Carmelite convent, where we had our lunch.

In the afternoon we made our first winery visit, driving about an hour east of Moissac to Domaine de Mazuc, which is just north of Puylaroque. We met Mme Carles, who was very nice. We spoke with her for some time and bought two bottles of their award-winning 2002 vintage (for 3,10€).

Dinner at the Brasserie au Bureau again: Steve with an omelette aux cêpes; Susan with salade aux quatres saveurs (foie gras, magret grillé, chasselas, cabecou); accompanied by a tasty Côtes du Frontannais (Le Roc 2002). The weather today was 2.0 (barely).

Monday, 26 September 2005

We enjoyed our trip in April so well that we decided that this trip should touch on it somehow. So today we drove north into the Cahors wine region and visited Domaine de la Bérangeraie once again. In April, the vines were showing only some new growth – they were quite bare. This time, things were a lot different! When we got there, Marlène (who we spent time with before) was out in the vineyard with numerous others harvesting grapes by hand. Despite that, she took time out to explain to us what was going on and even let us try it out ourselves.

After assisting (!) with the vendange, we meandered back to Moissac stopping beside the 15th century church in Brassac for our usual picnic lunch: bread, wine, olives and cabecou, the wonderful raw milk goat’s cheese which has quickly become our favourite. It was a lovely afternoon, and the countryside between the rivers Tarn and Lot is often quite beautiful.

Dinner tonight was back at the Restaurant des Récollets (where we had eaten on Thursday night), one of our best so far. We both had the 11,90€ menu starting with oeufs mimosa. Following that, Steve had tagliatelle au saumon and Susan had queue de lotte à la provençal. We both had gateau aux basques for dessert and a pichet of red house wine to drink.

Tonight, we’re packing up for tomorrow’s drive to Lodève which will be our longest day in the car – it will probably take us about 4 hours to get there, via the scenic route of course! The weather today was 2.0+.