12 days, 16 wine estates all over France and a kickstart in the form of an all expenses paid trip. Sounds like a dream ? Indeed it was a dream that I realised when I took off for France on a Scholarship trip to the famous Champagne area by virtue of my fanaticism for wine that resulted in the award of a Global Scholarship by Comite Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC)- the apex body of Champagne producers. The Champagne trip was a hectic itinerary of 4 days and the wine freak in me could not just get around the thought of concluding the visit to the Mecca of wine (read France) so soon after having made all the effort to reach there. Voila! I tapped one of my friends in France linked to the wine trade and fixed up an extended schedule to visit the other famous wine regions in a reasonable time frame- and my French Wine Odyssey was on!
My wine route chart in France worked out as Champagne-Bordeaux-Provence-Rhone Valley-Beaujolais before returning to Paris for my flight back to India. The 12 days spent undoubtedly were super hectic but of immense value due to the exposure received in all aspects of winemaking from amongst the best and accomplished winemakers in the world. On the sidelines, it also afforded me an opportunity to put into practical use, my whatsoever knowledge of French language!
Having been to all these famous wine areas, I decided to chronicle them in my blog so as to share the experiences and possibly act as a guide to those who would like to proceed on similar sojourns. The blog posts would start in the same sequence as my route chart given above so watch this space for the first sub-post coming up on my Champagne experience in the coming week. I would encourage you to give comments on any queries or observations that you may have or if you would like to interact at an individual level, feel free to mail me at ravi@ravikjoshi.com
Au Revoir!
