A rainy day in Cairanne

The picture above was taken late last night in the courtyard. Nice ambience!
From our past experience, rainy days here are few and far between. But today we had a good one. This was unfortunate for the poor Cairannites – can you call the residents of Cairanne that? – because this was to be their Vide Grenier day. Now for North Americans this is the equivalent of a town-wide garage sale or flea market. The last time we were here in September with our children, we enjoyed walking past stall after stall (aka each resident’s spot on the road) of junk. Well, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, right? And, at that time, we did find a cake plate in our Alsace plate motif for 2 Euros – woo-hoo!

Once it was clear that the Vide Grenier was a wash out, we headed out for a drive. No, the vistas were not spectacular, but the drive was none-the-less, pretty. We drove the back way to Nyons and then towards Vaison la Romaine.


From there we headed to Malaucene, the famous bike-launching town for climbs to the summit of Mt. Ventoux. Then it was a sharp right turn up into hills through Suzette and on to Beaumes de Venise. From there, we headed back to Cairanne via the cooperatives of Vacqueras and Rasteau. Not much shabby wine in these places!
It continued to rain, so cocktails were indoors in the den – the first time we’ve had a chance to use this room. We opened up doors and shutters and quite enjoyed the ambience.

Tonight it was duck for dinner. We’re never happy about the beef in France, but the duck is something else. We got two marinated breasts yesterday at Auchan and they were more than enough to serve three people.
So, tomorrow, total sun apparently and in fact the long range forecast has no more rain. The wine makers should be happy! We won't mind, either.