Vertical Tasting Part 2

With another rainy day on the way, we thought it prudent to seek out as many wine tastings as we could cram in. I mean, what else are you going to do!
As the day began, Brenda's luggage had not yet arrived, but the courier who had it, was apparently enroute. So we had a nice breakfast and hung around for a bit until Dennis, Jackie, Dawn and I finally headed off for a quick tasting in Visan. As we finished and headed back to Cairanne, Bill called with the good news that the luggage had arrived.

After a great lunch at the ranch, we drove off to Chateauneuf du Pape. Approaching Chateauneuf, the skies opened up, so we opted for some specific domaine tastings, starting with Chateau Mont-Redon.
The tasting room here was spectacular and we had a fabulous vertical tasting of their reds, as well as sampling a nice white and a great marc. The reds were 2007, 2006, 2004, 2003 and 2001. Once again, it was fascinating to taste the metamorphosis of each vintage.

We left Mont Redon in the pouring rain, so headed next to Chateau de la Gardine. We found the wines here fabulous and unfortunately very expensive. Most of their wines, unlike most wineries in the southern Rhone, will age nicely for 25 years, which explains their appeal as investment wines.

The rain finally stopped as we left de la Gardine, so we did the walk of the town, dropped into the tourism tasting room and went up to Verger les Papes for some more tasting, where the girls got a nice tutorial on how to properly taste, while the boys waited on the stairs up out of town. You could tell who wasn't driving.

For dinner this evening, we tried out La Relais in Ste. Cecile les Vignes. More about that tomorrow.