Peter Cunninghamtakes a ferry to Cherbourg for a Rhône vineyard tour.
IT'S FRIDAY EVENING and myself and a farmer friend whose life's mission involves finding - and drinking - good wine are on our way to catch the 11pm sailing from Rosslare to Cherbourg.
We have been doing this trip on the old Normandy for more than a decade. As the years have gone by we have struck out from the French port town and delved more and more into what used to be called the interior of France.
This year we are on the trail of Jean Gonon, a maker of Côtes du Rhône wines who operates near the riverside town of Tain-l'Hermitage.
A sense of calm prevails on the Oscar Wilde, Irish Ferries' very luxurious new €50 million ship to France. On checking in, we are given smart cabin keys, so we can go by lift straight from the car deck to the cabins. This cuts out the stress of the scrummage at reception that used to take place on the old tub.
Oscar Wildeoffers wide companionways, or staircases, three bars, two restaurants, a brasserie and a cafe. The cabins are spacious, with two beds laid out at floor level rather than as bunks, as before. The carpets are new, the colours fresh. Oscar makes poor old Normandylook like Lady Bracknell.
Saturday
We dock in Cherbourg at 5.30pm, but it takes 35 minutes to get the upper-deck cars off. The Rhône is 1,000km away, and we have to be back here by Thursday.
We decide to get a couple of hours under our belt and head for Honfleur, a pretty medieval port on the Normandy coast towards Paris. The roadsides are carpeted with primroses, and the apple blossom is out. Our duties are divided as follows: my farmer friend, a combine-harvester veteran, drives; I look after navigation and tolls.
On the outskirts of Honfleur we find Kyriad, a new budget-hotel franchise notable by its purple signs. It's a 10-minute walk into the old port.
A restaurant on the quayside serves fruits de mer, and as we dig into stacks of periwinkles moonlight bathes the vieux bassin.
Sunday
At 7am the Pont de Normandie road bridge, which links Honfleur with Le Havre, sparkles in the early dawn.
Getting around Paris requires nerves of steel, as the merest slip means disaster. We slip badly at about 9.30am: a wrong turn forces us to double back for more than 30 minutes. This means we lose an hour.
South of Fontainebleu at last we stop for breakfast, a meal the French have never understood. Reheated pizza and coffee from plastic cups.
Via Beaune for lunch at the excellent Le Gourmandin, then around Lyons on the A46 (not the A6 through the centre). In Burgundy the sun comes out. We arrive in Tain-l'Hermitage at 6pm.
Tain is joined to Tournon, across the Rhône, by several bridges, including an exquisite early-19th-century wooden footbridge. Our budget hotel, Les 2 Couteaux, is beside the river. We walk over to Tournon for a beer, than cross back for supper at Le Quai, a riverside restaurant where the veal kidneys are to die for.
Monday
Mauves is a rather plain village with narrow streets and not a lot happening. We find Jean Gonon in his premises, which from the road look like an abandoned farmhouse but actually consist of extensive cellars, a wine-making operation, a storage and bottling area and an office. In France, time and again, the action is hidden from the eye.
Gonon has just come in from working in the vineyards. He operates in the St Joseph appellation, where his wines are highly regarded and better value than those of the bigger Rhône names.
He is a spare, charming man in his 40s. He brings us down the winding steps into his cellar, and we taste his St Joseph 2007 from the casks. The wine is complex and redolent of strawberries. One to add to the list.
Later, having visited several other producers, we head north again, our purchases loaded. We are travelling towards the town of Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne, where we have stayed before, at a hotel and restaurant called La Tour. The hotel is also a lopsided antique shop: hundreds of clocks, none of them telling the same time. A rather fussy designer menu is served on eccentric crockery.
Tuesday
We spend the morning exploring the impossibly pretty town of Châtillon. A small river runs over waterfalls. The 15th-century church of St Andrew is tall and serene, and nearby is a completely intact covered marketplace from the 16th century. At every turn tulips are in bloom.
Our rule on this trip is never to plan ahead but to steer each day as it comes, using mainly the Michelin Guide.
We leave Châtillon and head for Burgundy, where we make some modest wine purchases in a shop in Morey-Saint-Denis, then pause for lunch in Nuits-Saint-Georges (our five-course lunch in a roadside cafe cost €12.50, including wine).
Then onward via Dijon, with its acres of mustard fields, to Chablis, Burgundy's northernmost outpost.
One side of Chablis is rolling farmland without a vine to be seen; the vineyards emerge on the slopes to the north and east of the village. The earth here, cold and flinty, gives good Chablis its special mineral taste.
The Michelin Guide reveals a converted hostelry with rooms at just over €50 and a restaurant with a Michelin star.
Hostellerie des Clos is the discovery of the trip. A set menu at €40 offers poached eggs in puff pastry on slow-simmered leeks and truffled chicken juice; pork cheek braised with Pinot, with glazed vegetables on pig-trotter cake; then baked bananas and prunes roasted in caramel and Pinot Noir.
A Beauroy 2004 Chablis from Alain Geoffroy costs €40, a Morey-Saint-Denis 2001 €85. The ambience and service in this Chablis jewel are memorable.
Vincent Grassin, the restaurant's chef, tells us that his favourite red wine is made just over the hill in Irancy, a place neither of us has heard of.
Wednesday
At dawn we climb out of Chablis in search of Irancy, which must be the most northerly producer of Pinot Noir in France. We breast hills of vines and creep down the almost alpine slopes into tiny Irancy, where Chef Grassin has told us to taste the wines of Jean-Pierre and Anita Colinot.
French villages seem to be perpetually deserted: this morning the men are all out working in the vineyards and the women are at home minding the shop. At least, Anita Colinot is. We find her up a tiny lane. She whips out two glasses and we taste and spit.
Fifteen minutes later, with a few more cases in the boot, we are leaving this stunningly beautiful and hidden community and heading north. Irancy wine could well prove to be a find, but only time will tell.
Thursday
Having driven 2,000km, we board cosy Oscarand set sail. The menu in the Berneval restaurant is excellent (try the boar pate), and the wine list has definitely improved.
We raise our glasses to the trip with a Tain-l'Hermitage 2005, €30.
The only way to get rid of temptation, as Oscar said, is to yield to it.
Peter Cunningham travelled to France as a guest of Irish Ferries (www.irishferries.com), which sails from Rosslare to Cherbourg up to 14 times a month.
Where we stayed
• Hôtel Kyriad. 62 Cours Albert Manuel, Honfleur, 00-33-2-31894177, www.kyriad.com.
• Hôtel Les 2 Couteaux. 18 Rue Joseph Péala, Tain-l'Hermitage, 00-33-4-75083301, www.hotel-les-2-coteaux.com.
Where we ate
• Hostellerie des Clos. 18 Rue Jules-Rathier, Chablis, 00-33-3-86421063, www.hostellerie-des-clos.fr.
• Le Gourmandin. 8 Place Carnot, Beaune, 00-33-3-80240788, www.hotellegourmandin.com.
• Le Quai, 17 Rue Joseph Péala,Tain-l'Hermitage, 00-33-4-75070590.
• La Tour, Place de la République, Châtillon-sur- Chalaronne, 00-33-4- 74550512, www.hotel- latour.com.
Vineyards we visited
• Pierre Gonon, 34 Avénue Ozier, Mauves, 00-33-4-75084527.
• Jean-Pierre and Anita Colinot, Rue des Chariats, Irancy, 00-33-3-86423325.
Where to find more
France's official wine site is www.vins-france.com.