David Crossley's Wide World of Wine

In the first part of this article, I introduced six of my favourite wine regions with my tourist hat on. Six wine regions I love to visit for reasons other than, or perhaps rather in addition to, the wine. Those were around Arbois (Jura), Vienna’s Nussberg, Alsace, especially Andlau/Mittelbergheim, the Mosel around Bernkastel, the Wachau in Austria and Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

For Part Two I’m going to take you around Austria’s Neusiedlersee, to the mountain slopes of Aosta, to the very precipitous vineyards of Lavaux, to the vineyards between Nagano and the Japanese Alps, to Piemonte’s Monferrato Hills, and to the deepest Aveyron. As with Part One, these are in no particular order. Most I have visited more than once, some many times. I’ve only made one trip to these particular Japanese vineyards, but a return there does feature on my list of top three places outside Europe I want to go back to.

As I said in Part One, this is just a bit of fun. I don’t pretend to have visited every beautiful vineyard in the world, so this is totally subjective. So do chip in with your own favourites. However, I might just provide the nudge to a few readers to head somewhere that they’ve always quite fancied a trip to. I hope so.

NEUSIEDLERSEE (Burgenland, by bike and ferry)

If, as I stated in Part 1, The Wachau was where I cut my teeth on Austrian wine, it is the wines of Burgenland, from the villages around the Neusiedlersee, that I drink most today, although the wines of Styria/Steiermark would doubtless push Burgenland a little more were they not so expensive. But also in Part 1 I emphasised that I am writing here about visiting a wine region as a tourist. It just happens that in this case I love the place as much as the wines.

This is a very good thing. To base every living moment of any family trip that just so happens to involve a vineyard landscape (who’d have thought) on the tasting, consumption and purchasing of wine would be shooting myself in the foot. To enable me to go on wine trips with my family, more relevant in the past when our children were young, there had to be something in it for them. As Part 1 demonstrates, if there is walking, cycling, museums and galleries and great food, then everyone is happy.

Now, there’s plenty to do around Europe’s shallowest lake, not least being able to hire a small boat with an engine to go on it (although drought conditions at the time of my last trip in 2022 ruled that out, the lake being no more than about a metre deep in most places, even in a good year). I have hired boats when staying in Rust, down at the marina and it is both relaxing and great fun pottering about on the lake and within the alleyways separated by bullrushes which ring its edges.

Rust is a beautiful town, storks nesting on the rooftops, good food, pretty architecture (you almost expect to see Mozart walking across the town square). There are plenty of wine producers to visit too, either in town or at Oggau, of course, just a short drive or cycle up the road (though if dining at Gut Oggau’s restaurant it’s maybe an idea to use a taxi).

Rust also has a bicycle hire shop on the main square (the Rathaus Platz). On our last visit (2022) to Johann Andreas Schneeburger, he hadn’t changed one bit, but his bike hire had. Now it was pretty much all electric bikes. If, as we did, you want real exercise, then you won’t get asked for your passport, nor a deposit (at least in our case). His dialect is hard to understand, but I’m pretty sure he said not to bother to return the pedal cycles, though we did.

Cycling options from Rust are many. Hungary is one, the border being a short distance south of Morbisch am See. I Guess Brits should take their passports nowadays, though the old Iron Curtain guard post probably still remains unoccupied. But Morbisch is the point from which you catch the flat-bottomed ferry over the lake to Illmitz. That has its own charm, and wine producers, but the ferry trip (you can take the bikes) and the cycling around Illmitz will introduce you to the bird life of the lake, which is plentiful, this being a major bird sanctuary (so there are plenty of hides). It’s also flat cycling, for those who need to know. Just check return departures before you embark on the ferry.

You get to Rust from Vienna by Bus (some require a change in Eisenstadt, some don’t, but as an aside, the Schloss Esterhazy in Eisenstadt is well worth a visit). By train from Vienna Hauptbahnhof, you can access the opposite (eastern) side of the lake via Neusiedl am See. There’s a handy bike hire shed right next to the station there. This is where to go from to visit producers around the north and east of the lake, especially in the village of Gols (around 11km on a bike), with a raft of natural wine stars including the Renners, Claus Preisinger, and the Heinrichs. The lakeside here is no less attractive than on the west side, and in fact you can often get right down to the water’s edge.

There are some beach areas over this way, but there is also a marina at Weiden am See, with both an outdoor swimming pool and a restaurant. In fact, there are several restaurants at the Weiden marina complex, but the one I know is called “Mole West”, and describes itself perfectly as “a casual spot for lakeside dining and drinks”.

I’ve never stayed around the Neusiedlersee lakeside for more than a few days at a time, it always having been combined with time in Vienna, or on my last trip there, Moravia. But there’s definitely more than enough to keep you occupied for a week.

AOSTA (basically mountains)

Well, not only mountains, but they do play a big part. The Val d’Aosta, or Vallée d’Aoste, it being an Italian region where French is still sometimes spoken, sits astride the Dora Baltea River. In the west it is hemmed in by Mont Blanc, whose road tunnel enters the valley on an Autostrade which whips you eastwards, into Northern Piemonte, almost within the blink of an eye. The region’s northern wall of mountains is breached by the Grand St-Bernard Pass, reached from Martigny at the start of the Swiss Valais (Rhône), which is the route in I’ve always taken. To the south, winding roads head up into the beautiful Gran Paradiso National Park.

At the centre of the region is the town of Aosta itself. Aosta is pretty small, with a population of around 35,000, but it has a long history, one which in parts is well represented by a number of Roman remains, including a Triumphal Arch (Arco di Augusto), a Roman Theatre, and a fortified Roman Gate (Porta Pretoria). If you want to do a bit of wine shopping and find somewhere to eat, it is well worth a wander (there’s more to see than I’ve listed here). The Roman theatre, with its mountain backdrop, is especially impressive.

The valley itself has several attractions, with plenty of castles of different eras, and a good number of wine producers. The co-operatives here are perfectly capable of making decent wine, and one, at Donnaz/Donnas, makes some rather good Nebbiolo. That said, the artisan producers make the best wines, wines which because this is Italy’s smallest wine region, rarely get onto export markets (Ottin and Lo Triolet being exceptions you can find here in the UK).

My initial reasons for visiting Aosta, the region, were not directly wine related. That I have discovered how good the wines here can be is largely thanks to one man, now retired. Bruno, and his wife Bruna (coincidentally) ran an auberge (yes, French name, Italian owners) at Bonne, a small hamlet above the village of Valgrisenche in the valley of the same name (accessed from Arvier, source of the wonderfully named red wine, Enfer d’Arvier, on the valley floor).

Bruno had started out as a sommelier in Milan and really knew his wine, so I trusted his local recommendations. On later visits he’d sell me aged local gems from his cellar at silly prices. I miss that couple. I also miss the menu-free restaurant with second helpings, the Grappa ai Mirtilli and the sight of men with crampons and ice axes arriving just in time for dinner.

The mountains are made for walking and there’s plenty of walking here. If I recommend one walk, it would be to drive from Bonne further up the valley, to the end of the reservoir (where you should spot a sunken village). Park, and walk the path to the Refuge of Mario Bezzi (2284m). You may find nature has been unkind, because on my last visit the profusion of butterflies was no longer evident, nor the small glacier we had to traverse. If you are lucky, however, you might hear first, and then hopefully spot, the marmots which we have always enjoyed seeing. Not to mention food at the refuge, which is quite large compared to most.

One final suggestion if you are up here. Valgrisenche has some really nice crafts for sale. And also you can buy real Fontina. This cow’s milk cheese is produced, by name, in many countries and often by highly commercial processes. Here, you will find a different cheese capable of going head-to-head with other great Alpine cheeses, like Beaufort and Abondance. Oddly enough, I had never been able to find a really comparable Fontina until recently, in a shop called The Cheese Lady in my County Town, Haddington. Which is a long way from Aosta.

Roman Gate, Aosta

LAVAUX (walking, tasting, and staring at the view)

I do like Switzerland. A long time ago, before I became Scottish, I would joke about starting a web site called makemeswiss.com. Switzerland has many more wine regions, and in fact many more very tasty wines, than most people imagine, because they are denied to us. Sort of. It’s not that importers shun them, some at least being adventurous enough to stock some. Alpine Wines, based in Yorkshire but shipping nationally, actually specialises in (inter alia) Swiss wines, run by a nice Swiss lady called Joelle Nebbe-Mornod. The issue is that the wines are often, though not always, relatively expensive. Couple that with a lack of consumer awareness and they can be a hard sell in a wine shop.

Even the regions most wouldn’t think of visiting have their charms. Geneva’s vines, largely to the west of the city, are worth a visit for pretty wine villages and some gently rolling hills around Dardagny and Satigny. Others are more spectacular, and perhaps none more so (although the winemakers of the Valais might disagree) than the steeply terraced slopes of Lavaux. So steeply terraced, plunging down into Lac Léman, that they have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Lavaux, in the Canton of Vaud, stretches from Lausanne in the west, where the region begins at the village of Lutry. Things get more interesting at Epesses, Rivaz and St Saphorin, but the whole stretch as far as Montreux makes for one spectacular vista. Some of the vineyards here are designated “Grand Cru”, but as with most wine regions, producer is key. If you have little knowledge of the region there are a couple of ways to gain that knowledge. One, perhaps difficult now, is to seek out the excellent book “The Landscape of Swiss Wine” by the late Sue Style (Bergli Books, 2019). The other is to taste at the Lavaux Vinorama near Rivaz.

But let’s step back a bit. Montreux can be accessed from Geneva by bâteaux, but that is laborious and you still have to get up to the vines. You can get a train from Geneva. The route is beautiful, but to get to Rivaz you need to get a Brig-bound train to Vevey and then a local train back to Rivaz, leaving you a ten-minute walk to the Vinorama.

Personally, I would take a car if you have access to one. Vinorama looks very much like a concrete bunker, though it claims to have been built with sensitivity to the environment. It sits on the north side of the Route du Lac just before Rivaz (if arriving from Lausanne), and there are two car parks. You can watch a film in the basement, but the main floor is devoted to the wines. I think at last count they had two-hundred-and-fifty on sale, which is impressive, and you can do a number of different tastings with snacks if you wish. You have to pay, but at least on my visits the snacks have been good. They also organise, inter alia, vineyard/cellar tours.

If you are tasting or buying, then many of the wines here are made from Chasselas. Often derided by the old folks who write about wine, they are wrong. Some of the wines you will taste have genuine character, although cheap (for Switzerland) Chasselas is nothing to write home about. But it’s not all Chasselas. If you are in any way a fan of Led Zeppelin you might want to try Plant Robert. No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Robert Plant, but I can’t help thinking of that band of my youth when I drink some.

Of course, I’m not just recommending a trip here to visit Vinorama. These are vineyards to walk in, and in good Swiss style there are a host of well-marked vineyard paths with accurate distances marked on signposts. You can choose to walk for twenty minutes around Vinorama, or you can walk longer, from village to village. One advantage of getting the train is that you could walk to Montreux, get an early dinner, and then back to Geneva. Montreux is about three hours on foot from Rivaz. The walking here can be gentle, or you can drop, and then climb again, 250 metres. It can be very steep. But try to visit on a sunny day. The lake and the vines are far more unforgettable on foot than when zipping through on the A9 Autoroute.

NAGANO (Vines with history and Culture, sake and chestnuts)

When I say “Nagano” I am talking about a wine region to the northwest of Tokyo which sits in the hills between the city and the beginning of the Japan Alps. If Yamanashi is the first of Japan’s wine regions people may think of, and which is likely to be the source of any bottle of Japanese wine you may be lucky enough to find in the UK, then as Jancis et al state in the World Atlas of Wine, “Nagano has been catching up”.

There is something undeniably both attractive and exciting about the sight of vineyards as you look out of the small train that heads up into the hills from Nagano to the end of the line at Yudanaka (on the Nagano-Dentetsu Line. Yudanaka is around 1h 20m from Nagano, and Obuse, see below, is about half-way, just 40 mins).

This is especially so if the bunches of grapes are wearing their waxed paper hats which protect them from rain. Actually, the secret of these vineyard districts is a relative lack of rain, the region being protected from monsoons rather more than Yamanashi, but harvest in November does follow the rains. It’s also pretty sunny here, though in late summer when we visited it was very mixed. Wet in the mountains but sunny in Obuse.

First, the mountains, as we are, I will remind you, in tourist mode here. You can take a local bus up into some remarkable forest. I won’t go into detail as you can get all the relevant info from the tourist information desk at Yudanaka Station, but there is a UNESCO Biosphere up there. The ancient forest is right out of a Studio Ghibli animation (think Princess Mononoke). We walked along a route where every fifty-or-so-metres there was a large chime with a hammer…to let any bears know you are coming. Bear Spray is generally recommended for mountain walking in Japan, but take advice on whether you need it. We didn’t take any.

We stayed at a ryokan (called Koishiya) at Shibu Onsen, a short drive (thanks to the Ryokan’s owner) to the Snow Monkey Sanctuary, beloved of so many nature documentaries. The monkeys are attracted to the hot springs and you can visit and walk among them (but don’t look them in the eye and don’t carry food). There’s a visitor centre where you can wait to see whether the monkeys turn up, but they live up the mountain and do as they wish, so watching a large troupe with their babies bathing in the steaming pools is not guaranteed. We waited a good 45 minutes one morning but they did come, and the visitor centre staff have cameras to track them.

Shibu Onsen is a twenty-minute walk from Yudanaka, which is where we begin our vineyard journey by getting the train back down to nearby Obuse. Obuse is most famous as the place where Hokusai worked in his later years, and this lovely small market town boasts a very good museum to this Japanese master, which I’d go so far as to call unmissable. It also boasts opportunities to sample a local speciality, chestnuts, and in particular chestnut noodles. Simple but so good.

On the periphery of the town are two equally unmissable temples. One is in a woodland setting which is mysterious and Ghibli-esque, enhanced by its thatched roof and mossy pathway. In its current form it still dates from the 1400s. The other has one of Hokusai’s largest works on its ceiling, among other attractions.

For me, the main attraction in Obuse is Domaine Sogga (sometimes called Obuse Winery). This is the home of one of Japan’s finest artisan winemakers. In 2005 the domaine went organic and concentrated only on vinifera varieties (although many of the wines made in Japan from hybrid varieties are worth drinking). The only chemical additions here are permitted levels of copper on the vines and sulphur in the winery, both being as little used as possible.

The varieties here range from Albariño and Petit Manseng to single site Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Tannat and Barbera. Read more about this domaine in Anthony Rose’s “Sake and the Wines of Japan” (Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library, 2018, pp294ff, now available via the Academie du Vin Library).

You might wonder how you can get out to the periphery of Obuse. You certainly need some transport. We hired bikes (I bet you guessed). Actually, we found the bike shop but the guy spoke no English. We enlisted the assistance of a very helpful young woman in the tourist office, which was more or less over the road. She organised everything, and the bike shop man even drew us a map to get to the temples and Domaine Sogga. I think there might be cycle hire at the station too, though that option means you have to lug them around all day. And I’d definitely allow a day for Obuse. One read of the introductory paragraph on the town in the Rough Guide to Japan should be enough to hook you. I’ve not even mentioned the Masuichi Sake Brewery, a very important place for the tourist to check out.

If you do visit and decide to stay up in Shibu Onsen, itself a very pretty location, do not miss going to an onsen (tattoos permitting, although if you are inked there might be the possibility of hiring a private onsen by the hour, as we did, soaking under the stars). Also be aware that the mountains here are part of the large Shiga-Kogen ski area and there can be snow between December and April. Some of the chair lifts run for walkers in the summer.

Nagano Vines awaiting the rains

MONFERRATO HILLS (Basically the views and the food)

For those, likely most of my readers, who know where the Monferrato Hills are, you might ask why not Barolo and the Langhe? For me, it’s simple. The Barolo villages are spectacularly beautiful, but they are also touristy. Okay, it’s all relative. They are not touristy like Chiantishire can be, and I think when I first visited Piemonte back in the very late 1980s they saw almost no British tourists. But nowadays that has changed, and the pressure of visitors turning up at wineries is no less than in any other region where a hard day’s work needs to come first over an Englishman’s expectation of a comprehensive tasting.

On all but one of my visits to Piemonte I have stayed a little outside of Nizza, or Nizza Monferrato to give its full name. Although Nizza has shot to a degree of fame in recent years on account of its DOCG for the Barbera variety (one of the few places this underrated variety is not second string to Nebbiolo), one wouldn’t say that these gentle hills around the town are among the most spectacular, nor beautiful, in the region. They are generally quiet though, and here you are perfectly located to venture out to visit the wider region’s finest attractions and beyond.

So, if you were based at an agriturismo here, with perhaps a decent on-site restaurant and a pool, what might you do over a relaxing week, other than eat wonderful food in a region I consider to have some of the finest gastronomy in Europe?

Obviously, Barolo. Today, if you are looking for affordable Nebbiolo, then Barbaresco might be a better bet. For genuine bargains maybe head up to Roero, and indeed to beyond, what the wine merchants now tend to call “Alto Piemonte”, which means any DOC up to the Aosta border. However, Barolo’s fame lies not just for its wines, but for the places: Serralunga d’Alba, La Morra, Barolo and Castiglione Falletto to name a few.

Most of the above villages have somewhere to indulge in a long lunch and then a walk in the vines (though be warned these walks inevitably end with an uphill stretch). If you want those famous views of the snow-capped peaks of the Alps, then the hilltop villages of the Langhe may be the place to take your telephoto lens…on a good day.

Then we have the towns. Alba is the region’s gastronomic capital, though if you want to dine here (expensively) in truffle season booking way in advance can be sensible. Asti is somewhat in Alba’s shadow, though it does have a rather good covered market on the edge of town. Bra is quite a trek from Nizza, but it is the home to the Slowfood Movement, and it boasts a very good market (check times, the main market is held on a Friday but smaller markets take place on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays). Although the market at Bra sells a wide range of victuals, cheese is a speciality. There is plenty of information on the internet.

Another possibility is to head south, where for me there are three attractions. First, Acqui Terme. Acqui is perhaps not the place to make a special detour to on most days of the week, though it has its attractions like most old towns in Italy. However, it also has a very good market (Tuesdays and Fridays in the morning through most of the year). The town suddenly becomes extremely busy on market days, a good sign, but it is way more difficult to find somewhere to park if you arrive late.

Acqui is also a gateway to the Ligurian Mountains. These hills are wild and rugged, and for me these forested slopes and small villages are very attractive. If you like mountain walking there are numerous options, although there are no metal chimes and hammers to warn the wild boar of your approach.

If you take the road from Acqui to Varazza, an attractive route which winds through several villages including Sasssello, which seems to be a centre for amaretti biscuits, you can detour via the SP334 to Albisola Marina. We were recommended an unprepossessing but very good seafood restaurant here some years ago. Annoyingly, I can’t remember what it was called, but the small seaside town (next to Albisola Superiore) has plenty of seafood eating options, and it also has some beaches (public and somewhat smarter private/pay for ones) if you happen to need a sun tan or to dip your feet in the Med.

Acqui has its own vinous specialities, Brachetto especially. Piemonte’s so-called lesser varieties can best be sampled outside of the more famous DOCG vineyards, and the likes of Grignolino, Freisa, Ruché and the aforesaid Brachetto really should be sought out, certainly by anyone interested enough to be reading this. But also remember that if you venture via my route into Liguria, you will have dropped down into the wine region of Riviera Ligure di Ponente, where you should seek out Vermentino/Pigato, Malvasia and the red Rossese di Dolceacqua. The wines of Cinqueterre taste strangely perfect with the seafood of the Western Ligurian Coast.

Langhe to the Alps with a bit of the old Nebbia (photo credit Anna Beer)

AVEYRON (La France Profonde)

It’s perhaps fitting to end this two-part piece back where we started Part One, in rural France. France was, of course, where I began my obsession with the beautiful landscapes that are vineyards, and it was a lovely old book by author Michael Busselle called The Wine Lover’s Guide to France (Pavilion, 1988) which in fact drew me to a great many of France’s regions. It came out, fortuitously, the first year I visited Arbois, and the year before my first trip to the Aveyron.

The vineyards which are broadly to the north and northwest of Rodez also have another significance for me. They were pretty much the catalyst for me beginning to write a book, which was to be called “The Lost Vineyards of France”. The typed manuscript lies somewhere in a cupboard, I’m not sure where. The project faltered for many reasons, but nowadays the regions I included are all no longer lost, and some have been very much rediscovered, for which I can sadly take little credit…except perhaps for my constant and repetitious plugging of Bugey.

Aveyron has three major wine districts, now all AOP, although “major” is very much subjective and in context, but there are others one might certainly call minor (Coteaux de Glanes, anyone?). These are Estaing, Entraygues-Le Fel and the possibly better known Marcillac.

These are regions that supplied wines locally, and then when coal mining became a major industry here, slaked the thirst of the miners. Post-war rural depopulation almost killed viticulture here. Their renaissance has largely been on the back of the wave of natural wine that swept France at the end of the 20^th Century, and the fact that hillside vineyards here were available as abandoned plots for very little money. Life here is very rural indeed, so a certain lifestyle element came into their revival too.

I’m not going to talk about the wines here very much. Even in the 1980s there were one or two producers that bottled a hectare or two of grapes in Entraygues and Estaing, plus small local cooperatives, when these wines were classified under the old VDQS regime. Much of the wine seen outside of the wider region in the 1990s came from Philippe Teulier of Domaine du Cross, whose Marcillac wines were very early on imported into the UK by Les Caves de Pyrene. I used to be a regular purchaser of his “Lo Sang del Païs”, both from Les Caves, and before that, from Adnams. Today, the most lauded artisan producer in Marcillac is Nicolas Carmarans, who once ran that famous Parisian bastion of natural wine, the Café de la Nouvelle-Marie.

But perhaps we should get back into tourist mode. If you are staying in or near Rodez there are several excursions I would recommend. I think these are trips that get you deep into what may be (still) some of France’s poorest regions, but are also, without any doubt, among her most beautiful. Let’s begin with one or two longer drives before we finish in the heart of viticultural Aveyron, at a village that offers the lover of art and history a real treat.

Beyond Aveyron to the east is the Cévennes and, if you wish, the Viaduc de Millau carrying the A75 over the Tarn, which if you find modern bridges even the slightest bit interesting will cause a flutter. Also worth seeking out if heading towards the Southern Cévennes is the old Templar staging post village of La Couvertoirade. It has a uniqueness that is worth an hour of your time. It’s actually close to the Autoroute, just north of Le Caylar.

In the opposite direction, west, you can easily reach Cahors for lunch, assuming you leave after breakfast (just under two hours by car), although the hilltop village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, which overlooks the Lot Valley, is well worth a stop en-route, at its most beautiful when the red poppies are in bloom among the riverside fields below.

My choice, if you have time for just one longer day out, would be to perhaps head north, to Salers in the Cantal. To reach it you pass through desolate limestone “Causse” country, where except for the passing of the seasonal transhumance, little happens. The land here is well watered, but the dozens of rivers are unnavigable, their best use put to turning water wheels, so that a town like Laguiole could become famous for its knives. These are now made elsewhere in France (the best in Thiers, where they have, like wine, an IGP), but, as they are not protected by copyright, also in China. If you pick some up in somewhere like TKMax then they may actually be pretty decent but might be from the latter manufactuary. Such is the fame of Laguiole knives that they are much faked.

Salers, like Saint-Cirq, is a member of the Plus Beaux Villages de France Association and its old grey volcanic stones have many tales to tell. Nearby is the extinct volcano, the Puy Marie, which you can climb with much less difficulty than most mountains due to steps having been cut on its most gentle slope. On a good day you can see a very long way to a distant horizon.

Rodez itself has its charm, in the centre around its gothic cathedral, but its once concentrated vignoble has been subsumed into the modern suburbs. From Rodez you can drive a circuit that will take you to find vines, hidden as they may be. Drive northeast to Espalion. Here, divert northwest up the Lot Valley to Estaing with its castle on a bend in the river. A little further up the D920, via the Lot Gorges, is Entraygues from where you must, continuing along the Lot, wind your way on the tiny D107 until you reach the D901. Here, you are almost upon Conques.

Conques is a strong contender for my favourite village in France. This beautiful village, full of turreted medieval dwellings, has at its centre the abbey church of Sainte-Foy (Saint-Faith), named after a young woman martyred in the first years of the 4^th Century. The monastery church and cloister are immensely interesting, but the fame, and wealth, of the place rests on the dubious acquisition (or theft) of the relics of the said saint from the poor monks of Agen, from whence Conques just happened to nicely slot into the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostella in Spain.

Conques has a museum of sacred objects but the “must see” item, housed separately when I was last there, is the Majesté de Sainte-Foy, described as one of the five most important medieval artifacts in France. The so-called “Majesty” is a life-size statue of the young saint in gold and silver, seated on a gold throne, all set with byzantine and roman intaglios, cameos and precious stones. Without this statue the treasures of Conques Abbey would be more than worth a detour, but seeing the magnificent Majesté is something completely different.

The driving back to Rodez is relatively easy, about 45 minutes via the D901, and the road passes through Marcillac-Vallon (to give its full name). You might actually find somewhere to buy local wine here…possibly.

There is so much more to see here than I have space to test your patience by listing, but one final thought. This may still be a remote and very rural part of France, yet it can be very busy at the height of summer. As an example, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie boasts few more than 200 inhabitants, yet can get close to half a million visitors per year. Most probably in August. Many on coaches.

Conques

I hope these two articles have proved interesting. I am quite lucky to have travelled widely through many European wine regions, plus a few more overseas. My enthusiasm for wine began before I’d ever visited a vineyard, but the attraction of the vineyard landscape, which struck a chord with something within me, certainly enhanced my appreciation of wine as I began to travel to stay in them and absorb some of their culture. These two articles cover just a dozen wine regions, but the number that I have enjoyed spending time in is so much greater. The list is so long that I have had great difficulty in choosing just a dozen regions to feature but I hope my special enthusiasm for this particular selection may have been at least a little inspiring.