Episode list

Ilja starts his new mini-tour of France in Alsatia (Alsace, Elsass), a northeastern region that kept passing from and to the German empire, which remains the more defining component in its mixed culture and traditions. It has the town voted most beautiful in France, which is more typically German then any in Germany. A real chateau was a medieval robber knight fortress and rebuild as a residence for German emperor Wilhelm before France took control again. Monks invented the stinky 'munster' cheese. Alsatian wines are varied, mostly white, except red from the unsurpassed pinot noir.

Ilja is in LANGUEDOC (alias Occitania), the southwestern region (near Italy) which is named after the 'other' French language (closer to Italian and Catalan) that went extinct. He enjoys its romantic nature and greatly admires the Roman remains from (early, Celtic) province Gallia Narbonesis, notably Nîmes and the aqueduct from Uzès with Pont de Gard, stones are still being reused for modern buildings. In Octon village, he bumps onto a by the road wine sale and visits the indoor winery. To avoid the perils over wine export to England by sea, attempts started from the Romans, who failed like Charlemagne, to dig what's now the Canal du Midi, 524 km. Car trouble brings Ilja to Minerve, Ancient tribal capital of present wine appellation Minervois, where he joins cheese producing sheep and goat farmer Vincent and his son Flavian, as angelic as their lambs. Final to Limoux, where monks from St.Hilaire abbey allegedly invented sparkling wine way before Champagne, and that blanquette de Limoux is still made form exclusive local grape Mauzac.