Lyon & Provence - Lyon

 

Day 7 - Monday 21 August – Lyon

This is the last full day of the cruise.

Mount Brouilly

At 08:45 we join an included excursion to Beaujolais Wine Country. We travel north as the guide tells about Beaujolais. The appellation Beaujolais, which includes the once famous young wine Beaujolais Nouveau, but the best wines come from the ten ‘crus’ which use their name instead of Beaujolais – although all the red wines of the region are made from the same black grape variety Gamay. About 5% of production, rarely seen outside the area, is white wine made from Chardonnay.

 

We go to Chateau des Ravatys in the hills about Mount Brouilly which gave its name to two of the ‘crus’, Brouilly and Cote de Brouilly. 

First we go to a vineyard to see vines with plump bunches of black grapes, then we get a tour of the underground cellars before being seated in a barrel aging cellar for a tasting. 

We are poured four wines, a white, a red Brouilly and two Cote de Brouilly  and nibbles are passed around. The excellence of the Beaujolais excursion emphasises just how overpriced was the optional  Chateauneuf du Pape visit. And while we can buy the wines if we want, there isn't the hard sell we got in Chateauneuf du Pape

We are moored on the Rhone at Lyon and some people wander off into the city in the afternoon. At 17:00 we attend a demonstration in the lounge given by two people from a silk factory. They explain how complicated pictures are imprinted on silk by multiple additions of dye through a screen. After 25 minutes the talk turns to various ways women can wear silk squares and I lose interest and return to the cabin.