Day trips, weekends, hikes (mainly to wine).
(Walking champagne part 1) Nearly 400 years ago, in the village of Hautvillers, the Benedictine monk, Dom Pérignon, was tinkering with the wine. During his tenure as abbey cellar master, he advanced the extensive blending used in champagne, devised pressing… Read More ›
Champagne. To me the word evoked little beyond locker room celebrations and wedding toasts, so when I concocted a goal to walk all the wine regions of France, Champagne was a long shot for the inaugural trek. The Philadelphia wine… Read More ›
Nestled between the southern border of Burgundy and the city of Lyon is the French wine region of Beaujolais. This is an area of predominately red wine which, by AOC proclamation, must be made from handpicked gamay grapes. The wine… Read More ›
The bus flew past, and for a moment I was too stunned to react. Then I yelled, but if anything, the driver accelerated. “I can’t believe it,” I told Pat, “We’re not going.” Six months of anticipation. For naught. Pat… Read More ›
It was drizzling as Pat and I stepped off the train at the Saint-Émilion station, so we pulled up our hoods and covered our backpacks before charting the path on my cell phone. We turned away from the ancient wine town… Read More ›
