Hi and welcome to WannaGoBiking. My name is Arjan and it is time for a new cycling adventure! After finishing my bikepacking adventure in Prague, I wanted to head out to the Pyrenees. Two years after initially setting off in the north east of France, I wanted to do the last bit of my tour through France. However, the weather was so bad that i headed to the Provence instead.
So today I’m in my favorite terrain again: wine country. I’m cycling along the grapes of Gigondas, Vacqueyras & Châteauneuf-du-Pape. After a brief visit to Orange I return in Gigondas.
Hope you like it, enjoy your rides and stay safe out there !
* If you like the music, unless listed below, it is on epidemic sounds:
– Douce France – Charles Trenet
-Turmoil- Rasmus Faber
If you use the referral below you get a nice discount:
https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/bl2e4i
Chapters:
intro 00:00
the plan 00:30
gigondas wine pedantry 02:25
03:00 vacqueyras
03:30 vacqueyras wine info
06:08 more wine pedantry
07:25 chateauneuf
09:20 lost footage?
09:59 Orange
13:00 Jay’s lessons
14:35 sundown
hi everyone and welcome to WannaGoBiking I am again in my beloved country, that is wine country I am in Gigondas, a little town in the south of France and that is home to very famous wines as is its neighboring village Vacqueyras which I’ll be visiting as well, after which I will be visiting maybe the most famous of Côtes-du-Rhône villages, which is Châteauneuf-du-Pape and after that we should finish off in Orange but yeah the first have to get started so see you on the road sunshine in a bottle a typically Provençal Little Village nice all right onward we go to Vacqueyras so already I’m in the middle of the Gigondas wine country and yeah it’s nice hope this road gets a little bit better though it’s sand and rocks not necessarily my favorite terrain but it’ll have to do so yeah Gigondas of course a very famous wine I say of course it’s a one of the most well-known Côtes-du-Rhône wines Gigondas wine consists of Syrah and Grenache and Mourvèdre I think a good bottle should set you back some 15 euros and yeah I think it’s well worth it if you fancy a strong wine same goes for Vacqueyras so we’ll head down over to Vacqueyras well I didn’t see a sign entering the town but I am in Vacqueyras that’s the city hall baignade interdite well you can’t swim in in the Basin what a shame oh well right these are the Vacqueyras fields like in neighboring Gigondas I think the recolte, the Harvest is about to begin this is end of September 27th or something now pretty much like the Gigondas , Vacqueyras consists of the same grapes with the addition of Cinsault and there’s actually a very limited amount of whites that you can have here that goes for both the Gigondas, Vacqueyras and also the Châteauneuf-du-Pape it’s only maybe five or 10% Max I think of the whole harvest and they definitely use some lesser known varieties for the whites here they would use clairette , grenache blanc , bourboulenc , yeah now you’re in the know all right I’ll start climbing now and make my way towards Châteauneuf-du-Pape right I really should be closing on Châteauneuf-du-Pape right now so that’s a good enough time for me to explain a bit about Châteauneuf-du-Pape if you’ve seen my Avignon video last year I think then you would know that we had two popes at a time in in Europe and yeah so one resided in Avignon and during that time- I think his name was Clement the 22nd? and yeah I think so so he resided in Avignon and he wanted to have an outside Castle because well why not? so he came to Châteauneuf, he was quite fond of the wines there so that stimulated the wine growth and I believe he was from a different town called Cahors and so he brought some local wine experts with him and they cultivated or helped cultivate the Châteauneuf region even more and yeah still to date it is a world-renowned wine very good I won’t be drinking any cuz it’s hot and I need water and coffee so I think I’ll have a coffee in Orange which is a maybe an hour away all right let’s check out Châteauneuf-du-Pape now see you later so, 13 varieties look at the prices that’s not fun ah I have to connect to the road a bit further up I think it’s maybe 2- 300 M and then hopefully some firmer grounds It’s undecided if this is a road or dried up river bed for me it’s unable on a mountain bike maybe okay this is really ridiculous, on the plus It can only get better I wish there was a method in Komoot to fine tune gravel riding cuz riding implies riding and this is only hiking and also if you can select how difficult the terrain can be would be very helpful cuz all these rocks are a nogo for me as is sand is, usually of course I am following a track but my GPS signal is lost so if you don’t hear from me again maybe this is a lost of footage so it’s nice meeting you all all right here we are: Orange right so here we are in Orange which is a city that’s quite familiar to us Dutchies I guess because one way or another, I think the fact that we use the color orange so much certainly in our football shirts and all that is because in 1544 our William of Nassau inherited Orange from his nephew and therefore he became the prince of orange and I think ever since we had something with the color orange well maybe I should have looked this one up before cuz I’m not quite sure and I think this lasted until 1713 or 30 the Treaty of Utrecht, so that’s Orange I know there’s two sites here that are on UNESCO world heritage list: the Roman Theatre and the Arc de Triomphe that’s where I’m heading first I’m not quite sure what I can see from the theatre itself and it is rush hour and I am already late so I’ll do my best but I can’t promise that we see much of that theater right now oh well anyway yeah must go, on y va that is quite magnificent wow she is a beauty cool all right let’s try and find the Roman Theatre well it feels a bit unfair all this climbing and this is all we can see ah I look up some nice picture on the internet to let you have a look at how it’s really like and way up there is the Mont Ventoux wow what an absolute Majestic sight that is as well yeah I think that’s pretty much it for now so still have 25 km back to the car hope I can do that before it gets dark all right on y va ! yeah they should make a lot of noise well think I forgot Jay’s lessons about how to deal with dogs but saw the owner standing by but he didn’t do much for the first minute or so so yeah not going to take any chances right Sunset is looming sun is about to set and I am back in Gigondas wow that was a super nice day for riding not as easy as I planned would have been 60k easy I think but it wasn’t, particularly the 2K that I had to walk or 3K even very rough terrain but oh well that’s all part of the adventure so yeah hope you enjoyed this little insight in The Vineyards of Vacqueyras, Gigondas and Châteauneuf-du-Pape if so give us some thumbs up all right stay tuned thanks for watching enjoy your rides, stay safe out there au revoir, salut !