Terra Vinea Wine Museum

I have recently visited a fantastic wine museum called Terra Vinea, near Narbonne in the South of France. The museum is part of a local wine co-operative, and they age some of their wines in their caves. The wine caves are down in an old mine, deep in amongst the mountains. The mines only shut in 1992, and since then a vast majority of the tunnels have been shut, and the rest have been restored. 

We started our trip on a little train that took us up to the entrance which was located near the top of the mountain. Below you can see the beautiful sunset, and the typical Mediterranean landscape of the south of France.

To enter the caves we had to walk down the old mine shaft, you can't really tell from the photo but above we are walking quite steeply down in to it. And below is a photo taken from the bottom looking back up to the entrance. 

Once we were inside the caves there was a light show which was very unexpected! But you can see that the caves are very special. This particular part of the caves is called the 'Cathedral' due to its very high pitch.

As you can see, some of the co-ops wine is stored here in barrels. As we walked around the other parts of the cave we could see more barrels. We then went back to the main part of the museum/co-operative to try their wines and in particular a 'Muscat Noel', which was a special Christmas Muscat that they were producing.

Definitely worth a visit! 
Their website:
http://www.terra-vinea.eu/pgs/visite.php


xXx

Domaine De La Croix

I have just had a weeks holiday in St Tropez in the sunny Cote d'Azur before moving West along the coast to the Languedoc-Roussillon region. While I was there I visited some local vineyards, where they are particularly focused on producing Rosé wine. 

Our favourite vineyard in the area is called Domaine de la Croix, near to La Croix Valmer. It has wonderful light, crisp Rosés, but also Whites and Reds. Unfortunately having travelled by air it is hard to bring back many wines so we had to consume the wines before we left... such a hard life! 

This is their website- have a look! 

http://www.domainedelacroix.com/en/?age_legal=true

We tasted some reds but we went for the Rosé in the end as it is the perfect wine for the South of France. 

These are their very smart tasting rooms where they not only have their wine for sale, but also things like aprons, wine books, cork screws, ice buckets and many other things. Its a great idea as it broadens their market and makes it in to more of a shop.

Below is one of their Rosé wines from the Vineyard Bastide Blanche. The vineyard is not at their site, but further toward Frejus. The vineyard was Domaine de la Croix's current owners first vineyard- so they have it available there as well.

I loved this idea of filling a large glass vase with old corks!

We also had a tour of their winery and we got to see the vats where the wine ferments. We also got to taste fresh grape juice straight from the tank before it began fermentation- it was a pink, cloudy colour and very sweet.

This is the very attractive exterior of the Domaine de la Croix. They have very well presented grounds which all add to the visit. 

These are some of their extensive vineyards before the vendage, which is the harvesting season which usually starts in late September.

And below is where we got to enjoy their wonderful Rosé!

More to come soon!

xXx