L'hotel du Marais - Saint- Jean
38121 Chonas Lamballan
Tel: 04 74 58 83 23
Fax: 04 74 58 81 96

After dark and in the rain and just moments before our first dinner, we arrived at the L'hotel du Marais-Saint Jean and quickly unpacked before meeting in the hotel's restaurant for a relaxing and luxurious meal.

Chef Pascal Colliat

There, we met up with the third writer of our trip, Ron Holden, owner of Seattle based travel company France in your Glass. Gregarious , knowledgeable, and French speaking to boot, the four of us became fast friends, talking about the evening to come.

Our chef for the evening was Pascal Colliat, the hotel's Chef de Cuisine for the past 3 years. A shy and unassuming 23 year old man, Pascal showed amazing skill and talent, and was entirely in charge of preparing and presenting the meals we ate that night. Formerly a farmer, Pascal became skilled through a series of apprenticeships in the hotels and restaurants of Burgundy and Dijon. This was the one of the most memorable culinary adventures of the trip. No matter how exquisite and artistically orchestrated all our meals were throughout the trip, no meal surpassed the experience of that evening.

Caille Roti et Desossee, Compotee de Choux au Lard Paysan et Sauce Genievre - Roasted Quail, sitting on a bed of sauteed cabbage with a ginger sauce, topped with a quail egg and a juniper egg.

As we were all tired on this initial arrival, and did not want to pair each course with a different wine, we paired the entire meal with a 1994 La Louvee Cornas, a wine produced in the South of the Northern Rhone Valley, on the right side of the river, a derivation of the Cornas Appelation.

Soup Glacee a la Courgette et de Salmon aux Petales de tomatoes confites, Eminces d'Artichauts Provrade et Comeaux de Parmesan

The wine had a lot of tannins, raspberries, not a lot of aroma, but great on the palate. This wine was decanted and was a beautiful deep cranberry color. We finished dinner with a pure essence of Pear, a distilled wine called Poire William.

It was not until morning that we were able to get the full flavor of the intimate provincial feel of our first stop. Just a few steps south of Vienne in Chonas L'Amballan, we awoke to find ourselves in a quaint, but sparse, 10 bedroom Inn.

Reaching out to push open the quaint, wooden shutters, we overlooked sprawling countryside and vineyards, just adjacent to the l'Amballan plateau. We were in an area where lots of mushrooms grew, and truffles were just 25 miles away. On our way out, we quickly grabbed brochures to check prices for a night's stay...

Domaine de Bonserine
Chemin de la Vaillieere
Verenat 69420 Ampuis, Bonserine
Ph. 94 74 56 14 27
Fax 04 74 56 18 13

First stop was Domaine de Bonserine, where we met with Responsable Commercial Richard Dommerc. A 25 year old winery, recently acquired by a corporation in the United

States, Domaine de Bonserine was in the process of replacing all their tanks and barrels. Many of their employees have been there just under two years. Seventeen parcels of land make up the ten hectors that produce the 30,000 bottles per year. "They used to make a correct wine, but now they wanted to make the best wine," said Richard Dommerc with great pride.They are currently experimenting with a new plunger process, and have achieved more tannins and colors with this new process, and this is the first year they have used this. They do not use any stems, as they feel that this way they can make a wine with a lot of tannins, without the bitterness. They export 30% of all wine produced and in 1999 they started exporting to the USA, selling through a distributor to restaurants, wine shops, and upscale stores. They age 100% of their wine in barrels for 1 ½ to 2 years. Utilizing different barrels to ascertain cost vs. quality of wine, they have used American oak, French oak, Russian and Hungarian oak. Russian and Hungarian oak is not used much, as it makes wine very dry. Currently, half their barrels are from the US, and they add 1/3 new barrels each year.

We tasted the1999 harvest from the tank. The color was a deep burgundy, with a green, stemmy spicy nose, pleasant, with a cherry taste. The 1998 barrel tasting was from old french oak, and was lighter in color vs. little nose, more fruit but also more tannins. It had characteristics of oak and smoke, with sour cherry taste, dry finish, did not taste like one year old barrel aged. The 1997 Cote Brune was smooth and elegant, and the Mouton 1997, with its wonderful aromas and spicy sensations will definitely age well. The Les Moutonnes Reserve 1998 made with 100% Syrah has beautiful color, profound aromas of both fruit and flowers.

Wines of the Rhone Valley

PART 1
The North

PART 2
Night One
Domaine de Bonserine

PART 3
Hotellerie Beau Rivage
Maison Guigal

PART 4
Mason Chapoutier
Le Chaudron
Delas Freres

PART 5
Cave De Tain l' Hermitage
Jaboule
Gace du Lautarett

Maps of Rhone Valley, France