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A few posts back I told you that Annonay, where Pascal’s family lives, is where the hot air balloon was invented.  If you don’t recall, I bet you will remember it now:

The photo is of Pascal’s parents house, La Chaumiere, and the hot air balloon floating above it is a regular occurance in the area.  Amazing house - it has a thatched roof.  Even better than the gorgeous property is the beautiful couple who live there.  What a treat to know them.

So, back to Bastille Day, and the morning preceding the lunch.  It was at a vide grenier!  At Tain l’Hermitage!  One of the more famous wine villages in France, and actually a place where I had brought a wine tasting group years ago when I was doing the Flying Winemaker Tours with my dad.  So it was very neat to return to the same place and this time for reasons for my new vintage business. 

As promised, herewith photos of the vide grenier.

One of the things I love about vide greniers is that it is sort of like an anthropolgy dig.  You can learn a few things about the area when you get to eye the objets they are passing along.

It was a really good sized market spread out across a park.  Lots of great things, at prices that outdo (in the good sense) what you find in Provence, including a new series of posters from mid-century.  I am sure they have never been seen in the U.S. yet, so that’s exciting. I am selling them on eBay and Etsy. 

If you are a wine buff, you may know this name well:

The Jaboulet wine firm is famous throughout the world, and the business started out of little Tain l’Hermitage nearly 200 years ago.  I pulled the car over and shot this sign/painting.  A nice older man in a beret told me he thinks the sign needs repainting (o, no, please).  I said that Jaboulet is famous dans le monde entier (not to inform him but to show him how impressed I was) he seemed pretty impressed, too.

For those of you taking notes you will remember that this is the Northern Rhone, whereas I live near the Southern Rhone wine region.  There are vast differences in the two regions and in the winemaking.  In the South, the hills and slopes are rather flat and far from the Rhone’s banks.  In the North, the vineyards are extremely steep, terraced and you could almost fall off the vineyard when you are pruning and tumble into the Rhone, it is so close.

Winemaking wise, the principal difference is “single varietal” in the North (Syrah and Viognier) and “beaucoup varietals” in the South.

I leave you with a couple more of my finds that are arleady online.  I picked up a couple dozen of these pharmaceutical tins from a couple who had bought them from an old factory, all in great condition.  They are so useful as well as being rare and beautiful.  By the way, I am going to see if I can get a discount code for you readers.  In the meanwhile if you are interested in anything on this post, let me know and I will offer you a 10% discount.

I leave you with the cutest little fanny I have seen in a long time.  It Bunny from the vide grenier and he is already on eBay waiting to be adopted into his new home.  You can visit him at my store.  Does his bunny trail lead to your home?