Maury Sunday Evening

It's around 9 PM the first of June and Maury is beautiful.  The town is quiet. Sunday lunch is over and the kids and grandkids have gone home, school is not yet out.

A man walks in the vineyards with his dog, another tends his garden and invites us to come back in August when the tomatoes are ready. Le vrai gout de tomate, not like the commercial stuff.

On the road to Lesquerde the only sound comes from birds. The wind is calm, the wildflowers are everywhere, the air is soft and the fading sun highlights the leaves of the Muscat vines and etches the shape of Queribus from the mountains. 

This is a special place and it's a fine time to be here. We often see it as a sanctuary, an escape from real life but then more and more you hear of people who came here for holidays and loved it so much they said why not all the time.

Certainly it's changing and that will continue. Right now I'm drinking a rosé from a Bordeaux winemaker who saw the commercial possibilities and opened a new winery here. And that will continue; we already have a Michelin blessed restaurant and there will be more. Some locals will profit from selling property at inflated prices, others will lose their livelihood to commercial development. It may be the next Provence or Tuscany, take your pick, but for now it's just a small town, with people of all ages who respond with a smile when a bonjour madame or monsieur is offered. The young people haven't left: the Ecole Publique has enough students and Michel and Angelique are building a new house just up the street.

Walking back into town I see three men sitting on the bench in front of the trompe l'oeil café. They are here so often, there's a painting of them sitting there decorating the Maison de Terroir. There's a crowd in the patio of the Café de la Placette, Auberge de Quèribus is empty, Jean has 3 or 4 couverts.

The rosé is very nice, as is the inexpensive Cotes de Catalane, the higher end wines to be over- blown and over-oaked. I like to think there's a populist spirit at work here.

Vineyards in the Fenouilledes

Fenouilledes Wines Show Their Stuff

The wines of Roussillon continue to impress. When I first wrote about the region in 2003-2004, very few Americans were aware of the wine quality, although Brits like Jancis Robinson and Tim Atkin had been on to it for a while.

It seems that it’s just getting better. I was at a tasting last week organized by vins-fenouilledes.com of wines from the Fenouilledes region of Roussillon, and the quality was amazing, especially the white wines. Winemakers in the region have really tapped into the strengths of the Macabeu, a grape used in Spanish Catalonia for cava production.

Here, there is the occasional varietal bottling, often in a vin doux, but the grape works very well in blending with Grenache Blanc and Grenache Gris. The higher acidity and floral quality of the Macabeu add a brightness to the blend that keeps me reaching for another glass.

The red wines, typically a blend of Grenache, Carignan and Syrah, I had expected to be outstanding, and they were.

I believe the wines of Roussillon are a true expression of origin, that leap from vineyard to bottle to glass that can be called terroir.

There isn’t time here for a complete report on the tasting, which included some 40 producers, each pouring several wines, but names to look for included:

Domaine de l'Ausseil , info@lausseil.com
Domaine Rousselin, domaineroussellin@yahoo.com
La Clos de l’Origine, closdelorigine@gmail.com
Camp Del Rock, phbotet@wanadoo.fr
Terres de Maliyce, corrine.soto@packsurfwifi.com
Mas Mudigliza, masmudigliza@neuf.fr
Domaine des Soulanes, les.soulanes@wanadoo.fr
Les Clos Perdus, hugo@lesclosperdus.com
Domaine de l'Elephant, renaud.chastagnol@wanadoo.fr

For more information on the region check out www.vins-fenouilledes.com

Larry Walker

Double-Yummy Lunch

“It’s all about good cooking.”

That was Ann talking after her second helping of the beef daube I had ordered. She had already pretty much worked over her duck confit.

We were having lunch at Auberge Peyrepertuse in the small village of Rouffiac, a curve on the D410, a very minor road a few kilometers from the Cathar Castle of Peyrepertuse.

She was right, of course,. This was the kind of restaurant where you should always take the waiter’s suggestions. He’s most likely married to the woman we could glimpse in front of the stove in the kitchen.

Peyrepertuse seats maybe 20-35 people with two more two-tops in a small entry bar. The walls are the exposed stone of two or three centuries ago. The tile floor has seen a good bit of traffic. A few high windows give glimpses of an even more ancient stone wall a few meters away.

The waiter brought two kirs which we enjoyed while checking the wine list. Every wane on the list was local, from the Corbieres AOC. It being lunch with a warming sun shining on the terrace (too early in the year for it to be set up) we ordered a rosé from Grand d’Arc, a winery we knew well that is just down the road from Rouffiac.

The food was beyond good. The daube was easily the best I’ve ever tasted. An unexpected treat: a black radish in the daube, gleaming in the sauce. A generous serving of white beans, perfectly seasoned and with enough pork fat to keep them honest, had come with Ann’s duck. Yummy.

What else? A terrific onion tart lingers on the palate. The glass or three of Maury Rancio wine. The excellent espresso. And rice pudding. A double yummy.,

This is the kind of French down-home cooking that is too often overlooked in the race for the ‘latest.’

Worth a trip. Call ahead for reservations at the weekend: 04 68 45 40 40.

Larry Walker