Often we ask ourselves what a journey has left us, in our minds, in our hearts. We often seek help in images, flipping through hastily and distractedly taken photographs, memories of happy moments, flashes. What I will personally take away from this vacation are the scents.
It's amazing how everything revolves around scents, how this area of France, the south, is intimately influenced and supported by them. Not only that: I strongly suspect that, more than the climate, more than latitudes, longitudes, and different cultures, it is precisely the scents of places that intimately shape the character of the people who live in those places. Therefore, I will not speak of wines or producers in this article. I will speak of perceptions.
It was a journey through aromas and material for me, among Provence, Languedoc, Roussillon, and Camargue. A trail of variable intensity, roller coasters of sensations that are always different and unique. The arrival in Provence is quite gradual; the Côte d'Azur acts as a bit of a screen for everything new that we will soon experience. In Provence, the Mediterranean scrub, the true fil rouge of the whole tour, manifests itself precisely, delicately, and at the same time sharply, like its elegant scents of "Provençal herbs", lavender, fresh flowers that evoke tranquility and harmony. From Bandol, climbing up the steep hills that immediately rise from the sea, all this becomes immediately understandable, clear, and vivid.
When you move into Languedoc and then into Roussillon, you realize that the context changes. Not just the landscape, but also the people are different. Still in the south of France, but attitudes and contexts are totally different. The Mediterranean scrub continues to dominate, the garrigue, but the surroundings are chaotic and confused. The garrigue is everywhere, around us, within us. The vineyards are no longer those neat rows exposed to the south, surrounded by woods and vegetation; here the scrub is even within the rows, between vine and vine, the brambles all around, new forms of broom, more intense, spicy, pungent scents. Like the energetic characters of the winemakers I have met. But this diversity becomes much more noticeable later, when from Roussillon you return to Provence, passing through Camargue which breaks the rhythm with its saline essences and scents of wild sea.
Wild, this is precisely the point. It's probably all about the contrast that one experiences. From Roussillon to Camargue, the scents change, but the feeling of an unspoiled world, of untouched people, and untainted wines remains. This new ferment that starts in Roussillon and involves this part of southern France is born from the people who inhabit these spaces and live in these bright and vibrant atmospheres, full of vitality. Provence embodies precision, order, harmony, and anthropized space. Roussillon and Languedoc represent disorder, pungency, calm in ferment, and humanized space.
There is another deep thought that this journey, very intimate, has left me with and that I am still trying to process. It suddenly exploded for me only after I returned. Perhaps because I happened, unconsciously, to compare my last two gastronomic tours. It is the comparison between Roussillon and Burgundy, between carignan and pinot noir, as one is the antithesis of the other and they are defined by their respective territories. To help me explain, I find myself borrowing Kantian philosophical concepts: carignan as Phenomenon, pinot noir as Noumenon. The Phenomenon is reality as it presents itself to our senses, the Noumenon is reality in itself, which exists independently of our perception. Carignan is a material wine, with pungent and alluring aromas, while pinot noir is an ethereal, cerebral wine, much more difficult to grasp. This is reflected in the places as well. Roussillon, as well as Languedoc, thrives on heresy and chaos. Burgundy has been regulated by monks centuries ago, with an order defined by precise dry stone walls.
Nothing ever happens by chance, in the eternal connection between man and wine. An last thought comes to me: there is no wonder that does not bring with it another wonder. Pay attention: there is no exciting wine that does not come from enchanting places. Where everything is beautiful, beauty can only be born.
