La Taverne du Belvedere

3 posts

Season’s End

Season’s end. John’s hands are stained from pumpovers and “brassage des lies.”   Fermentation finished.  A relief – fermentation is finicky business.   And now we see the extra work in the vineyard paid off; the vintage shows promise.  A few worries ticked off the list. October mornings:  newly crisp air and fog wisps above the valley.  Afternoons:   cold water swim and last caress of summer sun.   Night fall: early. John on the tanks – brassage des lies Season’s end brings changes to our nightly walk.   First the winery, to bed down the wine.   Embrace each tank, […]

Taverne – There’s Magic in a Beginning

The bank called it a coin perdu.    “No one will come.  Lack of experience, lack of credentials, big risk, big No.” But on a quiet, misty evening in June, our mayor and town council helped us cut the bright ribbon.  The village Taverne officially opened. The first week neighbors and curious locals stopped by.   They exclaimed at the extraordinary view. They praised the food and wine and prices and atmosphere; said this was just what they’d been waiting for.  Some of them pointed out their houses or villages in the valley below or on the hilltops some 10 […]

Coming Soon – La Taverne du Belvedere

Several years ago I dreamed there was a secret Taverne on the property.   The door was hidden to all but the initiate.   If you were lucky enough to cross the threshold you entered a fire-lit place of laughter, flowing with wine and beer.   It was an old fashioned kind of place, radiating human warmth. Years on, in one of those strange twists in the plot line of real life, we find ourselves on the brink of opening just such a place, our own – “La Taverne du Belvedere.” It has been a year of discovery, to understate the case, for […]