September 15, 2026 Breakfast - Croissant and ham sandwich Lunch - Le Regain in Cadiere d’ Azur. Dinner - Snacks

September 15, 2026 Breakfast - Croissant and ham sandwich Lunch - Le Regain in Cadiere d’ Azur. Dinner - Snacks

This a very eventful day entirely different from the water facing days in Sanary.  Today we spent among the vineyards and hill top villages in one of the small areas where the wine, olive oil, and foods of Bandol and Provence are produced.

I took a shower and dressed and we each ate our own breakfast. I ate a croissant buttered and spread white its pear jam, then a bowl of yogurt with sliced plums, and finally a ham sandwich with Leyden cheese.

We left the villa at 10:00 and drove up the hills to the Madison du Vin near Castelet. While Suzette and I tasted four more amazing wines, Billy and Elaine walked up the formidable hill to Castelet’s center.

The manager of the Maison du Vin called and made reservations for us at Olivette Winery at 1:30 that produces both olives, olive oil, and wines and Minjaud winery at 3:00.

We then drove to the parking lot on the hillside of Castelet to meet up with Billy and Elaine to find a place for lunch at 12:00, but the climb from the parking lot to the town center was too daunting for me and instead we called them and they walked down to the parking lot and we drove to Olivette Winery at 12:45. When we arrived the employees were eating lunch in the shaded patio next to one of the buildings near the tasting room.

When they finished their lunch at 1:00 they opened the tasting room and we tasted their powerful speciale wines that garnered 95 ratings from Robert Parker and then bought some of their olive oil and a bottle of nyon black olives. The property of Olivette winery is impressive with olive orchards and vineyards stretching in all directions.

But we were getting hungry and we asked the lady in the tasting room where we could eat lunch and she called the local restaurant in the nearest village of Cadiere d’ Azur. It was 1:15 and they said they would serve us if we arrived by 1:30, so we drove through the hills and the narrow streets of Cadiere d’ Azur, another hilltop town, up to the Restaurant Regain by 1:30. I parked in a handicap parking place next to the restaurant, which was the only parking place. The restaurant had its kitchen and indoor seating on one side of the narrow road through town and an open air patio on the other side of the road in a small area where an old public fountain and watering basin was located.

Everything was done on the fly because of the timing constraints. As soon as the waitress brought us water, bread, and the menu we ordered.

Suzette ordered gazpacho, Elaine and I ordered the fish steak and Billy ordered the Pork Chop that the guide for two couples of Americans sitting at the next table recommended to him. Billy also ordered a glass of red wine and we three shared a carafe of rose’ which is about 75 cl. of the house wines that were as good as most of the regular wines we had tasted.

When the food was served we were amazed because it was clearly the best food of the trip so far. Everything was wonderful. For example, our fish was Meagre or croaker.

The Mediterranean croaker, scientifically known as Argyrosomus regius and commonly called the meagre or corvina, is a large, silvery game and food fish native to coastal waters.

It was a thick dense white flaky steak that tasted like corvina, but the surprise was that the browned corvina steak sat on a bed of eggplant and tomato slices doused with olive oil and baked in an oven to soften and cook them that was really delicious when eaten with bites of the fish.

Billy was served the largest 1 1/2 thick pork chop I have seen in years with the best twice fried French fries, a small salad butter lettuce salad dressed with olive oil and a densely flavorful Demi-glacé sauce.

Perhaps the greatest surprise was Suzette’s gazpacho taken at lease two steps beyond normal gazpacho. The first was it was blended with cream to make it a smooth creamy soup rather than the normal hodge podge of vegetables and bread. The second step blew us away, a ball of burrata was blended separately and then extruded under pressure into a ball of foam on top of the soup. We had never seen or heard of blending and extruding burrata as foam, a new, interesting and delicious technique.

We were in a rush to finish by 2:00 but were offered dessert. So, Billy and I shared a small three sectioned glass platter with respectively, a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream dusted with praline, a chocolate lava cake, and a pastry extruded mound of whipped cream. We finished our meal at 2:15 as the waitress was clearing other tables.

Happy and full we drove to Domaine Mijuad winery in the small village of Brulat near Le Castelet, also recommended  by our new friend at the Bandol Maison du Vin  and called for a reservation for us. When we arrived at 3:00 we were greeted by the proprietress and her son who was the wine maker. Domaine Mijuad is a small producer that sells mainly to restaurants in the area but with a four generation history of wine making. This visit was exceptional because we did a barrel tasting of the 2025 red and the, just picked, fermenting 2026 rose. We tasted two 2024 reds, the Domaine’s Funky red for the lower end market and the regular Domaine Minjuad. 

In Bandol reds are required to be aged 18 months in oak barrels. Both were good but we liked the Domaine Mijuad better and bought a bottle of it. The son winemaker was an American culture aficionado, a vintage comic book collector and a DJ with turntables in the courtyard with a big grill where there were probably lots of funky celebrations.

The 2026 rose that was fermenting was cloudy pink with the flavor of foamy slightly vinegary grape juice.

We then stopped at Domaine Lou Capelan near Cadiere d’ Azur on our way back to Sanaray. This was the most beautiful winery I have seen on this trip with a breathtaking view of the vineyards with the hilltop town of Cadiere d’ Azur in the near distance and the hills of Provence behind.

The winery’s tasting room was open all day and its wines were excellent also. Not as powerful as Nicolette, but much more drinkable for our taste. The attendant spoke good English and recommended several restaurants in Sanaray and gave us a card for L’ Authentik de Tamaris that is an oyster and mussel production Compny that has a restaurant. Here is a photo of the card.  We made a reservation for dinner Friday evening.

We had decided to cook lamb chops tomorrow also, so we stopped at the fancy butchery shop when we returned to Sanaray and bought three lamb chops and small leaf wrapped goat cheese.

When we returned to the villa around 5:00 we were tired and happy. I napped until 6:15. Then around each of us snacked on our choice of foods. Billy ate melon and plums, I ate two slices of toasted and buttered Parisian baguette spread with duck pate ‘ on one and pork pate’ on the other and garnished with slices of Beaufort cheese on one and goat cheese on the other.

Suzette made a monster ham sandwich and Elaine nibbled.

We each drank a glass of Ray-Jane rose from the box and it was pleasant with an ice cube.

I later toasted and buttered a slice of pound cake and spread it with pear jam and drank a cup of tea with it.

I went to bed at 9:30 after a day of driving the narrow winding roads of Bandol.

Bon Appetit