Auto Ecole

Driving in France can be daunting, to say the least. Most rural roads are the width of one lane of Canadian roads, the ditches are deep to keep the roads from flooding during rains - which they do anyway - and there are more curves than a Roy Halladay pitch. Novice French drivers are obliged to display an A in their back window to tell the rest of the world to "watch out". I think the A stands for amateur and it stays there for one year while they are mastering the art of driving.
Today, Dawn got behind the wheel for the first time, without an A in the window. We chose a relatively tame route for day one - back to the Tuesday market in Vaison la Romaine. Although she admitted later that she felt a little ill and was white knuckling, she did just fine, with no lurching or stalling. She's on the loose now!

We got to the market a little earlier today and that was a good thing, since the throngs had not yet descended. This is actually a really nice place to visit on non-market days, since you never generally make it up to the old village and chateau on the market Tuesdays.

Today was another hot one, with the wind and humidity building as the day wore on. Therefore, the afternoon was spent with books on the terrace - did you get that Dennis? - and later we ventured out to do a little more wine tasting. We tried Domaine Rocher, just up the road from Cairanne, but once again the gates were locked up, so we went back to the Cave in Cairanne.

As we stand on our terrasse, we have a good view of the Cooperative's mass below us. Since we were last here, they have done some major renovating and now the tasting room is state of the art with all tasting choices kept at correct temperatures - which I will share with you are 7º for whites and 17º for reds. Forget the room temperature for reds, especially in these temperatures.
We tasted a white that was a Viognier/Roussanne blend which we particularly enjoyed and a number of reds, including their Gigondas and Chateauneuf du Pape.
Then it was back to the ranch and another day in paradise was in the books.