Wine Tour

Today we did a wine tour in the area around Arles. We had a guide who took us to two wineries, an oliverie (is this the right word?), and to a lunch spot in the chic town of Maussane. She normally guides larger groups up to six, but today it was just the two of us.
We started out at a vineyard called Chateau Romanin on the north slopes of the Alpilles Mountains. The cellars are built into the mountain side, on the site of an ancient cathedral. The Chateau doesn't exist anymore, but there are a few vestiges that are visible from the parking lot. This place was architecturally amazing. It really shows their passion, and not a penny was spared when building it.
At Chateau Romanin , we began by watching a short video about grape harvesting, then toured the crushing and storing area, then we tasted the wine. The French take wine tasting much more seriously than we do in North America...we even had written instructions for how to properly taste wine!
We had lunch in a small town, then went to an oliverie, where we again were walked through the production process, then tasted 7 different olive oils. Jim gave up after four, but Joanne carried on for all seven. The best olive oil was one that was made from lightly fermented olives. The biggest thing that we learned: 90% of the oil from an olive comes from the stone (aka pit), not from the fruit. Who knew?
After that it was one more winery, this time on the south side of the Apilles, in a Provencal mas (big stone house). It was a traditional winery in that their process was purely organic...no pesticides, artifical additives, etc.
We also learned that in order to obtain the AOC notation (apellation, declaring that they are a "correct" wine of a certain region), a winery must adhere to some very strict rules, including that they are not allowed to water the vineyards! Regardless of how dry the summer is, and it can get to 40C, they cannot irrigate their vineyards. They also have rules about fertilizer and how and when to harvest. If a winery loses the AOC verification, it gets called "table wine"...which still tastes pretty good to us schlubs!
We had fantastic wines and it was really nice to have someone drive us through the country side and take us to places that we never would have found on our own, all the time providing informative and interesting commentary.