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Wine Tasting Holidays: Ecotourism in a Bottle A holiday in France means fine food and excellent wine. Vaucluse is promoting wine-themed eco-tours including wine laboratory visits. You will be exploring the countryside on earth-friendly bikes. Even the winemakers get around on bicycles. This region of Mont Ventoux is actually a biosphere reserve, where the use of cars is discouraged. As a participants of the bicycle tour, you will first ride to the village of Flassan to ceremonially rinse your wine glasses in a fountain before sampling the local produce. In Mormoiron, you can experience a real wine harvest at Chateau Pesquie vineyard. You should not miss the special wine tasting sessions offered by Caveau des Gourmets in Gigondas. They have a selection of 18 wines from their local wine growers. In Rasteau, you will find a 6km hiking route through their wine slopes. Their regional specialty is Vin Doux naturel which is made from black Grenache grapes. Finally at the laboratory visit, amateur winemakers like you will be met with graduation cylinders, test tubes and glass flasks. You will be made to wear white lab coat in true wine connoisseur fashion. You will be making Cotes du Rhone with combinations of the grapes grown south of the Rhone valley. You will sample. You will spit. You will learn that wine gets its alcohol content from Grenache, its colour from Shiraz, and its aroma from oak. After many trials, and after you are satisfied with your creation, it will be transferred from the flask to a bottle. What you come up with is exactly according to your own taste, your very first bottle of Cotes du Rhone. What a cool way to end your wine-tasting holiday! Vacation Homes Around the World
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