The Corbasson’s  have returned from their 9 month trek across north and South America along with the final bottle of Cousignac, the Côtes du Rhône red.   The bottle traveled 45400 kilometers from our humble winery in the Ardèche to New York City to the final stop in Ushuaia where it was stamped by customs.

We invited the Corbasson family over for a welcome home bbq and of course, to share bottle number 12.  We all wanted to hear about their adventures in more detail and we were full of questions.  I couldn’t help but wonder how many times since their return they had answered the same questions and told the same stories.  Were they reliving their adventures by recounting them to us?  I understood that their most memorable moments were those unexpected meeting with locals who extended extraordinary hospitality.  At one time, they were invited to stay the week with the taxi driver who collected them after their camper broke down.  They accepted and passed a week sharing every aspect of daily life with this extended family.  I don’t remember where they said they were at the time but I do know it was in south America.

After tasting the travelling Côtes du Rhône, which everyone agreed had held up nicely given the distance and motion and lack of proper storage conditions it had been subjected to, we surprised the family with a few ‘bottles’ as a keepsake of their journey; four magnums. The first a Côtes du Vivarais Red christened Amerique du Nord, a Côtes du Rhône for Amerique Central, and a Côtes du Rhône Village for Amerique du Sud.  The final bottle – a cuvée Ardèsc.

The Corbasson’s invited us along on their adventure by sharing moments on their blog, http://corbasson-trip.blogspot.com/ .  Before they left, they stopped by our winery and purchased 12 bottles of wine to share with the new friends they would make along the way.  They were taking a piece of France with them, they said.  Each wine was opened at a precise location and marked in their blog as an episode;  the first ‘episode’ was at the White House.  The final was upon their return to France and the bottle’s return to Cousignac.