Organic wine

We went to see the English couple, Nick and Liz East, who make organic wine in St Michel today. We tried their lovely wines again with some friends and have bought some to go on the wine list. It was a lovely setting, a small property of only 3 hectares, Nick is considering getting a horse to work the vines!

A lovely lunch....

Today's lunch went very well, lovely people, a great atmosphere, some nice wine and excellent food. The sun even came out!

Some photos......

Another wine to try......

We were given a couple of bottles of wine by a local English couple who are making organic wine in a nearby village. The vineyard is called "Les Coudriers" and is in St Michel de Montaigne.

The rosé is very unusual, not at all dry and light like most rosés in the area but a far more complex wine which would be a perfect apéritif drink.

The red too is lovely, a very robust wine which went  well with the steak au poivre!

Wine tasting in Montazeau

Today we went to try the wines of Domaine de Grimardy, winemakers in Montazeau. M. Establet, the vigneron, was very welcoming. He makes Montravel Red, a little known wine which is easily as good as some St Emilion Grand Crus. it's called Révélation du Grimardy and we will be adding the 2003 and 2005 to our list.

Also interesting is the dry white he makes which is aged in oak, it has a much more complex flavour than the average dry white, we have some of the 2004. It's called Cuvée Marie-Juliette, named after his grandmother.

More wine tasting......

This afternoon we went to visit a new Chateau in the area to try some more wine. We were warmly welcomed by M. Lansade, the owner of Chateau les Murailles up on the hill behind the village. It was a blustery day but he took us to see his vines and the lovely red tulips which grow between them, which have been growing there since Roman times according to local lore.


We tasted his range of wines, from dry white through rosé and red to a sweet white and they were very pleasant. We have arranged for him to come and do a tasting at the restaurant on the 1st of May, details can be found on the Wine tasting meals page on the right.

Wine tasting

We often go wine tasting as we like to update our wine list regularly. Today we went to a very interesting tasting of about 30 vignerons from the area at the maison du vin in Port Ste Foy. We did the rounds, tasted a few Montravel reds of which we are particularly fond, filled in the form we'd been given......and exchanged it for a free wine fridge.......totally surprised at that, but you don't look a gift horse in the mouth so we crammed it into the Merc and bore our trophy away to the restaurant. You'd expect a free corkscrew maybe, but not usually a cave a vins!! Bergerac wine must have some marketing budget......