Wine tasting in France

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A couple of days after the tour of Montpellier, I went wine-tasting which was coupled with a château visit; the château and surrounding land, including the wine-tasting centre is owned  by a French family who live there.

Located in the south of Montpellier, we (my friends and I) were kindly taken there by car, by our organisers Anne and Catherine. Having arrived early, we were given the opportunity to explore the grounds and gardens for a while, which were absolutely stunning. It was such a lovely feeling, being in a beautiful place, with the sun shining after months of awful, cold weather in London. (It’s definitely true that we Brits are fixated with the weather but can you blame us?!)

Before the actual dégustation de vin (wine-tasting), we were shown around the château and whereas it was interesting with all its old and historical artefacts, I loved the gardens much more.

When we actually got to the wine-tasting, it was a lot shorter than I expected, but it was a great new experience. As well as drinking red, white and rosé wines, we were given cheese and bread to nibble on. A massive fan of all three, I was loving it. We would be poured a small amount of wine, and then bread and cheese nibbles would be passed around, we’d have a bit more of another different wine and more nibbles would be passed around.

We tasted two types of each wine – red, white and rosé – and the red was definitely my favourite; with deeper flavours, they were spicier and less tangy than the white or rosé wines.

We were first asked to look at the colour of the wine in the wine glass, as colour and transparency are indicators of whether a wine is good or not; then we were told to smell the wine and take in all the different scents of all the different ingredients used; and finally we were told to taste the wine, but slowly, savouring the taste of the wine in the mouth, before swallowing. (Most proper wine-tasting sommeliers (wine experts) will get you to spit out the wine afterwards, but as our session was quite short, the lady didn’t make us). We were even told how to correctly hold a wine glass.

Overall, it was fantastic day, a wonderful new experience, and a brilliant introductory week to France (and the week wasn’t even over yet!)