The Wines and Dentelles Mountains of Montmirail - A sacred place

Thème : Visit - Auteur : Gerlinde (06/26/2019)

The Dentelles de Montmirail rise in a jagged line, irregular and fragmented, an imposing ridge anything but reminiscent of the softness on the skin of the lace from which they take their name. To walk there means facing a sun flooding the rocky floor of a shepherd’s path that stretches up the steep slope of the mountainside; taking advantage of the shade of a twisted tree that has grown up between two hard, bright walls of rock; wondering as you see between two branches the empty space that has opened up below you in the climb, and the miles of countryside patterned with vineyards; and looking beyond and discovering a realm of vineyards, a place worked by the hand of man to harvest its essence, a treasure deep in the earth.

At the foot of the Dentelles, the land has seen the years and the generations go by, and the same sinuous, rough-skinned vines still wind around the lines of striped vegetation. All identical at first glance, they conceal different grape varieties that combine to create hundreds of wines drenched in sunshine and flavour. Each wine is an inheritance, the result of an equation in which weather, land, soil, vines, expertise and the human hand all make their contribution to the achievement of perfection. There is not enough time to taste all the wealth of wines in the region, but, by stopping at the wine producers’ cellars at the roadside or in the village squares, you can discover a new world of flavours, guided by wine merchants and growers happy to share their passion.