Our Blog - Gaillac Weekend

Even though almost all restrictions are being removed this coming week, we decided to get away for the weekend. Monday is a holiday here (Pentecost) but with restaurants and many "leisure" activities closed until Tuesday, it was pretty quiet. We had seen on Facebook that a vineyard near Gaillac was having a picnic lunch in the vines on Sunday, so we decided to create a trip around that.

Our first stop was at the Fôret de Buzet, which is a forest just outside of Toulouse. Encompassing over 1100 acres (460 hectares), there are quite a few marked routes for different things (walking, running, a "sports" trail with exercises mapped out, mountain bike trails, and equestrian trails. We parked at the South parking lot and headed out to give Lucy a different walk than normal.

We then headed towards Gaillac. The region has been producing wine for a long time, back to the early 1st century. Roman merchants transported wine to Bordeaux and Northern Europe down the Tarn River, and vineyards soon followed in the valley. Vineyards flourished in the care of monks in the region, who needed wine for religious purposes. There are several grape varieties that are unique to this area, including Len d'el (sometimes called loin-de-l'œil), Braucol, Mauzac, and Duras. We have been to Gaillac before so this wasn't our first time with these wines. But we stayed outside of the city of Gaillac and just relaxed in the countryside.

Our first winery was Château Lastours, a family domaine going back at least 4 centuries. On the property is also a large garden and a Pigeonnier (a dovecote which houses doves or pigeons). Pigeons and doves were an important food source historically in the Middle East and Europe and were kept for their eggs and dung. This one dates back to the 17th century. No pictures of the garden or pigeonnier, as they were around back and we didn't want to bother the family, who were there having lunch. We had a nice wine tasting with one of the family, Louis, who joined the family business in 2013. Nice wine (we started stocking up for the summer with whites and a red good for grilled-steak), and we ate our lunch in front of their chateau on some tables they had there. We had picked up sandwiches at our local boulangerie that morning since we knew that getting lunch somewhere would be problematic.

We then headed to our second winery, which is actually two together. The Famille Balaran has two different "domaine's": Domaine d’Escausses & Château l’Enclos des Roses. While we were doing our wine tasting, Lucy checked out the room and then took a few minutes to relax on the floor of the tasting room. After doing a bit more buying ... we were on our way.

We needed to find something to do before heading to our B&B, so we followed the signs to the hilltop village of Castelnau de Lévis and its château. The castle was built at the beginning of the 13th century by Gicard Alamon, and called Castelnau de Bonnafonds. It was rebuilt by the Lévis in the 15th century, and then restored in the 17th century by the baron de Castelnau-de Bonnafous who lived in it. As you can see from the pictures, most of what is there today are remnants of the buildings, other than the 130 feet tall watchtower. As we headed up the hill, we first saw the mains of the main building, with a really well-preserved mullion window.

There aren't that many hotels open yet, but there were several B&B (Chambres d'Hôtes) that were taking guests. There are lots of regulations due to the coronavirus, specifically for cleaning/disinfecting and social distancing. We were really happy to find this one, as was Lucy. The house was rebuilt by the owner from, well, what looked like pretty much ruins from the pictures she showed. She did an amazing job, and it has an amazing view over the area. She also had a puppy, Miss Ella, who is roughly the same age as Lucy and just a big larger. And WOW ... they hit it off right away! They played and played and played .... we just let them do what they wanted within her large, fenced yard while we chatted with the owner. We picked up dinner to-go from a nice restaurant in Cordes-sur-Ciel (a short drive).

The next morning, the two puppies picked up just where they left off the night before while we had a great breakfast on the terrace, overlooking the pool and the countryside.

Now to the catalyst for the trip ... Domaine Gayrard and the picnic in the vineyard. I happened to see something on Facebook about the event and it looked really interesting. It is another family business, dating back 5 centuries. We were given a wonderful guided tour from Laure, who is married to the current head of the vineyard, Pierre. During the tour, she explained a bit of history, how the land had been a vineyard, then all of the vines cut and the land used for agriculture, and now the return to a vineyard. They practice biodynamic wine making, creating a diverse natural space including the vineyards but also various different areas where they have trees for truffles, olive trees, lavender, and mixtures of cereals intended for the neighboring farm animals. We got up really close to the vines, and she showed us where you could still see the last traces of the grape flowers (1st picture) and where the flowers were all gone and you could make out each little grape (2nd picture).

Here is part of a little "truffle" farm area. We learned quite a bit that we didn't know about truffles, that they are basically subterranean mushrooms, Truffles, growing underground among the roots of certain trees. They have a little plot where they have planted certain types of trees that are good for truffles. You have to make sure you have proper irrigation, and then look for signs that truffles are actually forming at the base of your trees. You’ll do this by noticing "burnt areas" around the base of the tree (this takes around 3 years). Basically, this means that no grass or weeds are growing near the base of the tree because truffles release a natural herbicide that kills the weeds. It isn't a great picture, but you can see the round "dry" area.

Next, we headed inside to where they create the wine. They have both stainless steel vats for white and rosé wines (right) and concrete vats for reds. She said that the concrete allows a little bit of air inside that they want for the reds but not the whites or rosés. She also explained the whole process, from the harvest (majority by hand as the tractors are very stressful to the land and the vines), to the pressing (using the machine seen in the 1st picture on the left side), to the aging in barrels. They bottle on the property but using a "mobile bottler" that works with a large number of the vineyards in Gaillac. It just isn't advantageous for each small family vineyard to have their own bottling machine.

Then we were able to do a wine tasting of a variety of wines before picking up our picnic basket (actually a bag), selecting a bottle of wine from the list (included in the picnic) and heading into the vineyard. They had set up several tables with covers around the property and gave us a map showing where each one was. This allowed them to keep a bit of distance between everybody. Here you can see the spread .... a baguette along with duck rillettes (basically ... cooked and shredded duck in a can, like potted meat in the US), fresh cheese, a bag of potato chips, a small jar of hummus, and some cherries from the trees on their property. All of the food is from small, local producers. They also provided the glasses, silverware and napkins. All of it was great!

And Lucy was VERY tired on the way home! She had played with Miss Ella in the morning, then there was a miniature Australian Sheepdog named Oscar at the vineyard that she played with. She also walked all around the vineyards with us during the tour, and played with a little girl while we did our wine tasting. She normally wants to stick her head out the window or watch where we are driving, but she went directly into her little bed and went to sleep.

This last vineyard was really lovely, and the people very friendly. They told us that they tend to do events monthly, an apéro with music or an open house. I've followed them on Facebook to try to get notifications of these. It is fairly close ... an hour-ish from Toulouse ... and so perhaps we can get a few couple together and meet up for a nice evening out in the countryside. Just what we want in retirement ... great friends .... great food ... great wine!