Exciting weekend! On Friday we received our business cards in the mail from Elise, my sister-in-law and our graphic designer. It was such a thrill to open the box and see our very own business cards! Now we are official! On Saturday, my good friend and wine journalist Michel Bettane, formerly of La Revue du vin de France, now out on his own with his colleague Thierry Desseauve, came to visit for the weekend and taste our wines.  www.bettanedesseauve.com Boy was I nervous, and excited at the same time. To have one of France's most respected wine journalists come, (as a personal favor of course) to taste our wines, was a great honor, but also pretty darn scary! What if he didn't like them, what if he found a flaw in them, what if he called them simple and one-dimensional???? Well, there was of course the chance that he would like them too.
Michel arrived at lunch time and it was a beautiful day, so we decided to go into Uzès to have lunch at one of my favorite lunch places, Terroirs which is right on the Place aux Herbes. Saturday is market day and as I said it was a beautiful day so the terrace was already full. Tom, the owner poured us a glass of wine, a Vin de Pays de Vaucluse, a delicious quaffer from Domaine des Aphillanthes. Spring was in the air, everyone was peeling off their coats and soaking up the warm sun. As we were finishing our lunch, the former owner of Terroirs passed by, he is opening up a new restaurant in March, and invited us to stop by and see how it was coming together. He asked my to bring some samples for him to taste so that he could put our wines on his list, even if they weren't going to be ready until July, that was no problem! Great news, he said that he likes to "faire travailler les copains" (or help sell his friends' wine).  Very exciting!
Back at the house, it was now time for the moment of truth. I had pulled samples from all of the tanks that morning in order to give them a bit of time to breath and to warm up a bit. We started with the rosé, which is showing well right now. He was pleased, clean fruit, full, ample, a touch heavy due the ripeness and high alcohol. He gave us some pointers for bottling and we moved onto the mourvédre, which up till now I haven't been very happy with. He stuck is nose in the glass and said, "now that's mourvédre". Wow! I was really surprised, notes of garrigue herbs, thyme, rosemary, a touch of leather. All good. He liked the other two also! So we are off to a better start than I thought. Wait, that was only Saturday, I tell you the rest in the next posting...