Cahors

Josh, Cheryl and John in Cahors, Pont Valentré in the background

Cahors was high on our list of places to visit – there is only one Cahors. It hosts one of the longest-running Blues festivals in Europe – greats like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, and Charlie Musselwhite have graced the stages there, along with people like Ana Popovic, Janiva Magness, Bernard Allison and Walter Trout.

Cahors is also the center of the AOC wine region called “Cahors”, the “black wine”, which by rule must contain at least 70% côt (Malbec), This is the historic region for this grape in France, though it has been nearly obliterated twice – once by the phylloxera outbreak in the late 1800s, and more recently by killer frosts in 1956. In each case massive replanting was required. Côt makes a dark, full, tannic wine which can stand many years in the bottle. It makes a very nice big red that’s much less expensive than the tony neighbors to the west in Bordeaux. There are something like 200 independant producers of Cahors in the region.

The Lot at Cahors from Pont Valentré

The word “Cahors” is one of those French words that north Americans just can’t get right. I’m told it’s because we don’t move our lips enough when we speak. To say “Cahors” correctly you have to get the “ka” out, then make a big O with your lips to pronounce the second syllable without sounding either the h or the r. Accomplished speakers kind of swallow the r at the end. I’ve been working on this word for a few weeks now, and every time I say it my French friends smile and say “that’s very good, but listen”, and then say it correctly.

We decided to do a field trip to Cahors one Saturday while Josh and his friend Sarah were here visiting. It’s a little over an hour by car northeast of Auvillar. As you travel north the lush farmland gradually gives way to a more rugged terrain, and the color of the earth starts to show more white, limestone apparently, and the houses reflect the different building material. Cahors sits on a big udder-shaped loop in the Lot river. When you look at a map of the Lot, it makes these big

The Lot from Pont Valentré at Cahors

deep loops for 40 km or so to the west of Cahors – I’m sure it would be 100 km or more by boat to travel that 40 km as the crow flies. From the map alone you might expect lush flat farmland, and there is a little of that for sure, but many of the sides of the river are steep cliffs where it’s carved its way down over the centuries. This is the heartland of the Cahors wine region, but it extends quite a ways up the hills on both sides of the river. It’s possible to travel from Valence d’Agen, near us, to Cahors and beyond by canal barge, but it would likely take a couple of weeks – down the canal des deux mers, into the Garonne, then to the point where the Lot joins the Garonne, then up the Lot.

It was mid-day Saturday when we arrived, right at the tail end of the public market, and we headed right into the old part of the city. It’s ancient and lovely, full of streets too narrow for cars, interesting shops and a mix of people right from tourists like us to craggy farmers in town for the market. We wandered the streets for a bit, then stopped for lunch at a

The back of Chateau Lagrezette

place on Blvd. Léon Gambetta, the dividing line between old and newer Cahors. The food was great but our waiter disappeared for long periods at a time, making lunch take more than 2 hours. At least Sarah got a chance to try gésiers du canard, duck gizzards, a favorite here in salades du pays. They’re about teaspoon size, purple in color, and absolutely delicious once you stop thinking about what you’re eating.

We had intended to drive out to Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and then come back through Cahors to visit a couple of wineries, but lunch had taken up too much of our day so we had to pick one or the other – beautiful hilltop French village, or wineries. This particular day the winery choice won out, and we turned west with no particular place in mind, just following progressively smaller roads as we headed out the valley of the Lot. The first winery we came to was ancient and lovely, with a huge and imposing chateau, and in we went.

Chateau Chevaliers Lagrezette, 1997

It was Chateau Lagrezette, one of the finest wineries in Cahors. The four of us sampled their reds, from simplest to most complex, and we came away with a box. We resisted the temptations of the 98€ Pigeonnier, and even the 37€ Dame Honneur, settling for the more affordable, but still luscious, Lagrezettes. They’re 85% Côt (Malbec) with the balance Merlot and a bit of Tannat.

We continued down our little country road toward Caillac and came across a hand-painted sign for “Dégustations” – tasting – with an arrow. A few more signs and we were in the tiny parking lot at Lo Domeni, the winery of Pierre Pradel, who does everything here. It’s hard to imagine how different this is from Chateau Lagrezette, but Pierre is charming and his wines are lovely, 100% Côt and considerably less expensive than the Lagrezettes. A little less complex perhaps, but very enjoyable. I asked Pierre how to pronounce “Côt”, saying it like “coe” without sounding the T – he said “Hah, ce n’est pas Paris, c’est le sud-ouest! C’est “Côt”, with big emphasis on the hard T.

Pierre at Lo Domeni in Caillac, picking a fig

He does everything himself here – tends the vines, makes the wines, pours it in the tasting room, and we enjoyed our visit with him – he picked a ripe fig for Cheryl and we stacked some more vin in the back of Serena, the trusty Nissan van.

View Map