Wine Tasting at Cave Bianchi 1860 in Nice, France

I’m not one for organized tours but when you’re cruising it just makes sense. Part of the benefit of cruising is the convenience of being shuttled around so why not extend that to land on this type of vacation.

While anchored out in Monaco for two days, we decided to take advantage of being so close to Nice and signed up for Oceania’s Flavors of Nice wine tasting. The trip took about 45 minutes — and these particular French roads weren’t scary. Plus it’s really a beautiful drive!

The tour was bookended with walking around the city with a guide from and little headphones that *screamed* tourist. But we did have a bit of free time before the wine tasting to grab some wine along the Riviera. (Detecting a wine theme yet?) After our wine along the sunny pebbled filled beach, we strolled on over to an ancient dark cool cave for a most memorable wine tasting.

Our guide throughout the tasting was particularly good (unfortunately, Miles and I can’t remember his name we’ll call him Monsieur for now). Monsieur was quite a showman. Most entertaining wine tasting we’ve ever been to! Perfect balance of great wine, delicious canapés that featured French cheeses, and entertainment!

Monsieur really captivated the room as we were cozied up in what felt like an ancient cellar with our wines and perfectly paired canapés. We tasted a white, rosé, and a red. He told us about the soil, the amount of moisture, and the climate. These things are what made the wine unique, interesting, and special.

As interesting as the facts about the wine were to hear, where Monsieur was really able to transcend was with his humor. My favorite was when he mentioned how dry and delightful his rosé was versus that “White Zinfendel cat piss coming out of CalEEEfornia” — the whole room crack-ed up.

At the end Monsieur hoped everyone had a good time. Thanked us all for coming. And said that everything he said was “bullshit” and you should just “drink what you like”.

We bought two bottles of rosé. And we’d totally go back!