Discover fine wines with The French Tour Co

Tomas Clancy from the Sunday Tribune had nothing but praise for the selection of wines we showcased in Ireland at a wine fair before Christmas :

Here's the article from the Sunday Tribune

The enduring wines of France

By Tomás Clancy

French winemakers have an knack of weathering economic storms.They have bounced back from the Black Death, the South Sea Bubble, the Hundred Years War, the French Revolution, the Great Depression and Nazi occupation.
So, as the world economy again comes tumbling down, the French are first out of the traps in refocusing their efforts in producing good wines of exceptional value.
However, at a gathering of French winemakers at Sopexa’s autumn French Wine Fair in Dublin earlier this month, it was two sisters from Limerick who stole the show when they unveiled a number of intriguing wines and business ideas.
Karen and Suzanne O’Reilly are at the centre of a ex-pat web of Irish businesses in the Languedoc, where they live with their partners and children.

In Languedoc-Roussillon, it’s sunny and warm all the time,” saysKaren. ‘‘We can be swimming in the Med in about 20minutes, or skiing in the Pyrenees in about an hour.”

Suzanne settled in France in 2000, after a rollerblading accident left her unable to continue with her job as an air hostess for the Amir of Qatar. She considered a change of career and, with property sales booming, joined a French estate agency.

In 2002, she formed the property business bidsinfrance.com with her accountant sister Karen, and they began selling and renting property in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.

Like generations of Irish merchant adventurers before them, it wasn’t long before working with the vine captured their imagination.‘‘Wine became a passion and we decided to turn it into a business,” says Karen.

The sisters set up the French Tour Company, frenchtourco.com, running English-speaking wine tours around Perpignan, Languedoc and Roussillon.

The company runs daylong Red Berry Tours, which cost from €80 to €100 per person, and three-day tours, which cost €250 per person and include three nights’ accommodation, chauffeur transfers, tours and vineyard visits.

The Why French Women Don’t Get Fat Tour (€95 per person) includes walking, calorie-sensitive fine dining and a spa day.

Whereas its Art Tour (€90) involves museum visits and an art class.

In conjunction with their tour business, the sisters are beginning to import wine to Ireland from their favourite wineries.

Their exhibit at the Sopexa wine fair focused on little-known wines of good value.

The pick of the bunch was the Domaine Treloar, Three Peaks Cotes du Roussillon 2006 (91) which is an astoundingly intense and savoury grenache, syrah and mourvedre blend that would shame many a Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

If it were on sale here it would be priced under €20.

Let’s hope the O’Reilly sisters find a distributor for it in Ireland.

Elsewhere, the wines shown at the Sopexa fair were mainly the fruit of wineries which endeavour to run green, sustainable and organic businesses and - in the case of Domaine Treloar, Lutte Raisonnée - struggle to work in harmony with the soil and with nature.