Winery Visits - Jean Baptiste Souillard

May 1

May 1 Winery Visits - Jean Baptiste Souillard

Our only appointment on Monday is at Jean Baptiste Souillard at 2:30pm. We sleep late, have breakfast at the hotel, and Adam goes to rent a car. Unfortunately, the car rental isn’t until 11:30am so we have to wait a bit at the hotel after we check out and before we can get the car but by noon we are in the car and on our way!

It’s only an hour drive to Andance but we are leaving and driving in that direction thinking that maybe we will see something along the way that we might want to stop at. I guess I imagined that driving down the Rhone would be a very rural experience and really it is just driving down a highway. Along the road there are factories and buildings and also trees and mice views. The most surprising to both of us is that there are vineyards and plots of grapes growing right up to the edge of the highway in some points. Of course we have taken pictures of the nice spots but much of it was not as picturesque as I imagined.

Driving into Andance was very charming. After some turns off the highway we go over a cute little bridge to a small town where there is not much going on. Somehow we weren’t too hungry and I guess that’s a good thing because there were not too many options if we had wanted to eat. I think I imagined France with lots of little cafes. The only place we found here to get a coffee was a tiny “bar” that looked like it was unchanged from 1970 in a very uncharming way.

We drive to the address of JB Souillard and it is up a winding narrow road that opens up to a house at the top of the hill. There is nothing you can hear except the birds up here and it’s lovely.

We’re told it’s number 406 meanwhile we only see number 404. There is no sign or anything indicating that we might be in the right or wrong place. If we are in the right place, then the tasting is actually at his house. I read that this might be the case so it’s only medium confusing. We are 30 mins early but we thought it would be better to be early? So we ring a doorbell and walk around this house and nothing happens. We decide to wait until 2:30 and try again after that. I have a phone number to call in case no one comes out.

But at 2:30, we walk around the house again and finally a door opens and a man pops his head out and says “I am Jean Baptiste”.

JBS does not grow grapes, he buys the grapes from specific vineyards and makes wine. We literally went into his basement/barrel aging room and where it was dark and damp and full of spider webs and stood at a table that he brought his wines to. There were nearly 20 bottles that he opened for us to taste, some of which he bottled this morning. He is the only person who works for his “winery”. He told us that he does everything himself, including putting the labels on the bottles. I guess that’s good because then all the money goes to him?

The wines were interesting, mostly delicious of course. He has a “Burgundian style” when it comes to his wines. He is dedicated to making wines that are single vineyards which express the excellent terroir of the Northern Rhône. Since he is such a small production company, his wines are super expensive! It was nice not to have any pressure to buy anything at the end of the tasting but what a crazy experience, just us and JBS chilling in his cellar. Of course we spit most of the wines out but still, no lunch and so much tasting—we were vair hungry!

What did we do with this hunger at 5pm on Monday night? I hate to admit it— but we stopped at a McDonalds!!!! The chicken McNuggets were awesome!!! Aghhh.