Lunch at Bec à Vin Restaurant in Uzès and tasting rosé wine at Domaine de la Mordorée in Tavel.

We headed to Uzès without reservations for lunch, which is a major no-no in my book. We and our friends Steve and Mary, love good food and wine and our lunches together are usually a highlight of the day and source of fond memories. So we try to reserve before we head out.

Upon arriving into the center of medieval Uzès, I checked to see which Uzès restos were rated by the Michelin inspectors. There were no Bib Gourmand restaurants, but there were several listed near the center of town and I quickly went by each to see if they were open and check out their menus.

Based on the menu, the restaurant's location and dining room, it was a pretty day but too cold to dine outdoors, I chose Bec à Vin Restaurant. It is located in a former 12th century stone Relais de Diligence (stagecoach station).

Bec à Vin Restaurant

Bec à Vin is owned by Greg Gunié and Chloé Malherbe, originally from Val d'Isère and St. Malo respectively. They opened the restaurant after completing extensive renovations on January 12, 2011.

Mary and Shirley at Bec à Vin Restaurant

The restaurant has a pretty garden for dining on warm, sunny days and several dining rooms with vaulted ceilings which can accommodate up to 50 diners.

Bec à Vin Restaurant

The food was delicious and plated in a very appetizing manner and included parsnip soup, quinoa salad with olives, red peppers, apples, kumquats and cilantro, trout from the Pyrenees with red lentils and garlic cream sauce, and beef fillet with roasted potatoes with green peppercorn sauce. But the most memorable part of our meal was a very tasty and for me, an unusual rosé wine for Tavel.

Domaine de la Mordorée Tavel

I love well made, chilled, crisp, dry rosé wines at any time of the year. Generally, I find Tavel wines to be too serious, heavy, not crisp and refreshing like those from Côtes de Provence, Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence, or Bandol. So when I tasted the Domaine de la Mordorée rosé at lunch that day, I wanted to go to the winery. So off we went; conveniently it was on the way back to Sablet.

Domaine de la Mordorée

As I said, Domaine de la Mordorée is in Tavel, a wine-growing Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, across the Rhône River from Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC. The vineyards that produce the appellation's wines are located around the town of Tavel, just north of Avignon. Tavel wines are all rosé wines.

Entrance to Domaine de la Mordorée tasting room

Domaine de la Mordorée was founded in 1986 by Christophe Delorme and his father Francis with 12 acres in Tavel. His brother Fabrice joined the domaine in 1999 and now finds himself alone at the helm after the sudden death of his brother from a heart attack in June 2015 at age 52.

Domaine de la Mordorée tasting room

Domaine de la Mordorée was named after the woodcock that flies over the vineyards during the bird's migration. Mordorée is the name used locally for the woodcock, his father was a hunter. The name of the wine "La Reine des Bois" means Queen of the Woods.

Woodcock, it's poetical nickname in Franch is "La Mordorée"

During the years that followed its founding, the domaine acquired 135 acres of vineyards, on 38 different plots of land, in 8 different districts in Lirac, Châteauneuf du Pape, Côtes du Rhône, and of course Tavel As of 2013, all of the domaine vineyards have been certified organic.

Domaine de la Mordorée tasting room wall

Although I was not familiar with the wines of Domaine de la Mordorée, I found out they have an excellent reputation with wine writers for the wines from all of the AOCs where they have vineyards, not just Tavel. In Fact Robert Parker, named Domaine de la Mordorée "one of the world's greatest wine estates".

Another view of the Domaine de la Mordorée tasting room

I look forward to returning to taste their wines from Lirac and Châteauneuf du Pape and of course the new vintage of the domaine's rosé from Tavel.

Domaine de la Mordorée

Bec à Vin Restaurant
6 Rue Entre les Tours
30700 Uzès
Tel: 04 66 22 41 20
web: www.lebecavin.com

Have a great week.

Chateau Trinquevedel, Tavel, France

Our favorite summer wines at Bistro Des Copains, the small French bistro I co-own in Occidental, California, are rosé wines from the South of France. These rosé wines are bone dry, vibrant, delicious and easy to drink.

Shirley and I love love rosé wines. We don't think there is anything much better than sitting on the terrace of our home in Sablet on a sunny day or for that matter on our patio in California, sipping a glass of well-made rosé wine.

Tavel, a small village located in the Department of Gard in Languedoc-Roussillon is reknown for its production of rosé wines. The village is located about 46 kms from our home in Sablet, just west of the A9 autoroute. We have driven past the exit sign for Tavel many times but had never been to Tavel, so we decided to go one afternoon to explore and déguster - taste wine.



After driving around the village, I was glad we had come to taste wine as there was very little particularly pretty or charming about Tavel despite the sign indicating that Tavel is classified as Village Fleuri. This classification is a result of an annual competition set up to promote the development of green spaces in towns and villages across France.

A staple of the Avignon popes and favorite wine of Louis XIV and King Philippe le Bel, Tavel was the first Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC), designated for rosé. The AOC has stayed true to its roots and to carry the name Tavel on the label, the wine must be rosé.



A few years after receiving the AOC classification in 1936, the vignerons - winemakers of Tavel established the Tavel wine cooperative in 1939. At the present time, there are 946 hectares or 2,338 acres of vineyards under cultivation in the Tavel AOC.



After tasting various rosés at Les Vignerons de Tavel, we headed to Chateau Trinquevedel, a Tavel winery whose rosé wine has graced the wine list at Bistro Des Copains several times.

Chateau Trinquevedel is located on a small trail off the road to Nimes on the east side of the A9 autoroute. Chateau Trinquevedel is surrounded by 32 hectares or 79 acres of vineyards, all of which are located in the Tavel AOC. Chateau Trinquevedel only makes rosé wine.



Chateau Trinquevedel is currently under the direction of Guillaume Demoulin, who took over management of the winery in 2006. He is the 4th generation of the family to oversee the winery which was established in 1935.



The Chateau Trinquevedel vineyards are planted in acccordance with Tavel AOC regulations with Grenache Noir (44%), Cinsault (28%), Clairette (15%), Grenache Blanc (5%), Syrah (3%), Bouboulenc (3%) and Mourvedre (2%).



The terroir of Tavel is unique. The Chateau Trinquevedel vineyards are planted in sand with quartz round pebbles on the terraced hillside and in deep clay loam around the Chateau. Low rainfall, sunshine and summer heat along with the mistral wind produce rich and hearty fruit.



We were warmly greeted in the cave by Selene, wife of Guillaume.



She offered us tastings of 3 vintages of Chateau Trinquevedel traditional rosé wine. We started with the 2008 as it was the lightest of the wines, then moved to the 2009 which showed more red fruit and finished with the 2007 which had the most structure.



She explained that after being picked, grapes are sorted in the vineyard and at the winery. The grapes are put into barrels for maceration, which lasts from 12 to 48 hours. Then the juice of the grapes is bled off in the saignée method. After the juice is bled off, what remains is pressed.

After being pressed, all the juice is blended and transferred to concrete vats where the juice is allowed to ferment for approximately 20 days.



This method gives the rosé wines of Chateau Trinquevedel more color and structure than most other rosé wines meaning they can be enjoyed for a longer period of time, usually up to about three years.



The rosé wines of Chateau Trinquevedel are bottled in the longish shaped bottles with embossed T emblematic of the Tavel syndicate.



Shirley along with Lisi, Julia, Allison and Adam in the cave at Chateau Trinquevedel.