All posts tagged: wine tours

Portugal Wine Tour: Part 1- Porto and Douro Valley

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Ehem, no, I didn’t go to Portugal again, but I’m writing about the trip I made 2 years ago.  I couldn’t post it then because my blog was down but I thought I’d share my experience since it was not only great but also educational. It’s always better late than never, right? Someone out there might get some useful tips from my post, who knows? Blogging is a great way to document and relive good moments, I believe. So if you’re planning to visit Portugal, this might help you. It was our honeymoon trip and we rented a car and drove all around Portugal. It’s a great country to do so and I highly recommend it. Also, advice from friends, mutual friends and blog friends was invaluable in making the trip great and memorable. Though the ultimate destination was Porto, our trip started and ended in Lisbon, and got to see more of the country than we’d thought because flying to Lisbon from Istanbul was more convenient. Mr.O and I had no idea where to visit as we usually …

A wine trip to Georgia – Pheasant’s Tears

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Pheasant’s Tears…. Ok, let’s get started, finally! It is one of your lucky days having two posts in a row from me! Ehem… What a poetic name! Very fine wines make pheasants shed tears of joy when they sip it….. Well, I must have been a pheasant in my past life, because I cry, too. When I sip a good wine, all the words for describing wines stop dead in my head and all I manage to utter is simply wows with my eyes automatically closing and my head moving sideways in a very slow motion. There should be non-verbal evaluation of wines like this. Words can disguise emotions but the body language can’t as passion is felt rather than spelt out. Don’t you think so? Have you had this kind of moment? You just want to savour it, feeling reluctant to say a word, as if any words would spoil the taste. Sorry, let me get back on the track. Though it wasn’t entirely irrelevant to the review I’m about to write because my …

Burgundy Wine Tour Ends with Pilgrimage – Part 4 – Le Puy-en-Velay, Sarlat-la-Canéda

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I am back! I suddenly had to leave for a week-long trip in the middle of posting on my Burgundy trip after Part 3, leaving my readers in bewilderment. This unfinished post bothered me throughout the trip, which was a telltale of my life  infatuated with blogging. Why do I care so much about blogging? I do not have the answer, but all I know is that I feel good when I put my thoughts into words, whether or not others care to read my articles or not. Blogging is therapeutic for me, not about bragging. 

Burgundy and Rhone Wine Tour – Part 3 – Mâcon, Beaujolais, Côte Rôtie to Côtes du Rhone

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Marking the end of the Cote d’Or (Part 2), we stopped off at a cave in Mercurey for the final tasting of Burgundy wines. Upon entering, I was immediately put off by the Enomatic machines but after the short battle between the logic and emotion, I stayed and tasted some wines, hearing the chattering of tourists. We quickly drove through Macon and reached Beaujolais, where another surprise was awaiting me. Like many people, I instantly frown at the sound of the name, Beaujolais, all because of the worldwide reputation of Beaujolais for its marketing gimmick. I was dreading at the thought of tasting that cheap bubblegum wine.

Burgundy Wine Tour – Part 2 – Meursault, Montrachet

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Continuing on the road after the Cote de Nuits and Beaune (Part 1), as we were passing through Meursault, we stopped by in Domaine Delagrange just to check out their interesting cave. The owners were busy drinking and talking with clients but still tried to be as hospitable as possible by asking us to see the barrel room and pouring some wines for tasting; imagine how chaotic it would be in June to August! Because of my preference for rich and powerful red wine, the reds in Burgundy tickled my appetite but the whites were good, which compensated for the desire for reds. So I decided to drink nothing but whites till the Rhone. While driving along Rue de Grands Crus, we saw some life happening in this rather quiet town so we checked it out. It was a medieval festival where people were dressed in medieval costumes and making and selling crafts and home-made food. We bought some of the aged mouldy goat cheese and the bread that was baked at the site, which we …

Gevry Chambertin

Burgundy Wine Tour- Part 1 – Côte d’Or – Gevrey Chambertin, Pommard, Beaune

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This time last month I was driving from Bordeaux to Dijon to start the one week long tour of Burgundy and Rhone regions. So many memories flick through in my head and I don’t know if I can deliver my experiences and feelings at that time exactly as they were after a lapse of one month. Let’s see…. When we started out on the road, the sky looked grim and it got worse and worse we were getting closer to Dijon. It was very late when we arrived in the starting point of our journey so we turned toward the most touristic part of Burgungy, Beaune, for the night. It was a very charming town with rich architectural interests from the Flemish-Burguandian time in the Middle Ages, such as colourful tiled roofs. I am at the heart of the Côte d’Or!!! It took some time to relocate my head from Bordeaux to Burgundy. Though in the same country, they were so different; physical features of the people, mannerism, ambience, smell, sound, food, and everything else. The …