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Wine tasting in Lyon: fun & free!

A very big welcome to Lyon Eats' newest guest writer, Ngan Dam. Ngan is currently teaching English here in Lyon, and also searching for the best wines along the way. She is a trained and certified English literature and ESL teacher, has years of experience in the translation and interpretation industry, speaks English, Vietnamese, and Spanish, and is working to add French to the list. She is a Suite 101 contributor, writes for Go English mgazine, and blogs at Le Croissant Trail.

Wine tasting is one of my favorite things to do in Lyon for two reasons: it is FUN and it is FREE. Where else in the world can you have gratuit access to hundreds, if not thousands, kinds of wine in one place, at the same time?

Don’t worry if you are a novice drinker (like me), these salons des vins are super casual and the vignerons (winemakers) love to talk about their wines to those who visit their stands and want to taste their products. Some vignerons speak English!

Vinomedia and Vigneron Independent are two organizations that have annual salons des vins in Lyon.

Vinomedia hosts several salons des vins yearly in Lyon. Their salons are smaller than Vigneron Independent’s, featuring about 100 winemakers. Click here for the dates and location of Vinomedia’s upcoming tasting events.

Vigneron Independent, an association of independent winemakers of France, hosts a big salon every fall at le Halle de Tony Garnier in Gerland. More than 500 vignerons showcase their wines over the course of 5 days. Imagine all the wine you can sample!

Entrance fees to these salons run between 3 to 6 euros. However, you can request free invitations on Vinomedia and Vigneron Independent websites. Local newspapers, such as ANOUS, LyonPlus and Le Petit Bulletin, often print free invitations a few days or weeks before the salons.

Santé!

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