This morning everyone except me went to Arles for the Saturday market. This market is the biggest one we’ve been to and I can attest from the last two years that it is huge! I spent the morning working on the blog, relaxing, and looking for birds. This Great Tit was in the tree outside the big living room window. It is a very common bird in all of Europe and has a beautiful song, usually heard from high up in the trees.
We lunched at Aux Ateliers, a favorite spot for both locals and tourists in Maussane. We spent more than 2 hours eating our entree (appetizer), plat (main dish) and, of course, dessert and shared 3 bottles of rosé wine. After lunch, we shopped a bit at the boutique there and Allan, Clay, Charlie and Rick played a rousing game of Pétanque.
Next stop was the Domaine Romanin winery. Just past St. Remy, it is tucked into the edge of a mountain and one of the walls of the cave (cellar) is the mountain. Because of that the temperature stays at 15 degrees celsius and the humidity at 60% all of the time–day and night. We toured the facility and it is beautiful! The winery is designed like a cathedral. The wine in this AOC is 60% syrah grapes. Each AOC sets the grapes that can be included in the mixture to be bottled and the wine in this AOC is syrah, cabernet sauvignon, among other grapes. The wine we liked best is 60% syrah grapes. We tasted the wine and Allan, Connie and Brenda bought some for happy hour and some for bringing home.
Dinner tonight was “catch as catch can” of all of our leftovers and, of course, baguettes and butter.
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