Before heading down south to the Cote D'Azur, a stop at Paul Jaboulet Aine in the Rhone Valley to visit with fifth generation winemaker Gerard Jaboulet brings to life the history and tradition of France's oldest vineyards.

The presence of Paul Jaboulet Aine is pervasive in Tain L'Hermitage, a sleepy town in the northern Rhone Valley. From the window of the charmingly eccentric hotel in Tournon, the only slightly larger centre just across the bridge, even through the morning mists that sweep the river in the chill October morning, the sign is omnipresent.

It is a Rhone Valley icon: curiously incongruous against the dangerously steep terraced hills of the ancient Hermitage vineyard slopes nearby and having much the same affect as a neon light might in the Paris of Voltaire. Of massive dimensions - 200ft long, 50ft high - the sign exalts the name of company in worn black and white lettering but not for the motives one might expect. As a communal effort, Louis Jaboulet, organised the building of the sign during World War II to raise local morale in the face of the German occupation.

Inextricably bound with the wine-making history of the Rhone, the Paul Jaboulet Aine sign represented a triumph of will and age-old skill over the impudence of modern warring. And was ultimately successful. Despite the ravages of time - with some of the oldest vineyards in France, and the curve balls thrown by historical difficulty, Paul Jaboulet Aine today produces a line of twenty-two Rhone wines noted the world over for their remarkable character, longevity and consistency.