Wine tasting on a forty one degree day may not be ideal, but we brave intrepid gang of four did just that yesterday.
My French Prof Christophe told me he discovered a new wine recently. It is on the wine list of a newly opened restaurant; Cafe Joubert at Fraysac. I had offered to take two English women staying in Labarthe-Bleys this week to a winery so Domaine de Brin was a natural choice. Christophe just happened to want to go there as well so he was our chauffer.
Damien Bonnet is referred to as "le jeune homme" and he does indeed look just that. But he is 26, a qualified oenologist with his studies followed up by experience in various wineries. The 2008 vintage is his first on his own without his father and they are worth talking about.
We first looked over the winery, discussed his philosophy to vineyard management, the efficacy of cement tanks, new and used French oak, yeasts, fining and all those other interesting things which certainly make my approach to wines more personal.
Braucol
But the moment of truth is in the tasting. I did not tast the rose but all agreed it was very fruity and neither "jammy and sickly" nor too acidic. I was most interested in tasting the white, Peirres Blanches, which is a blend of two local grape varieties, Mauzac and Loin de l'Oeil. Unfortunately he did not have enough left for a tasting but I was able to buy a few bottles and one of them is in the fridge, but not, I am sure, for long.
The reds were of most interest to me. The first was Vendemia, which is the word for vintage in Occitan, the old language of the south. A pleasant wine but not what I was looking for. The second Anthocyanes was another matter. It has seen some oak but it was not overpowering and even at this early stage in life is well balanced with a lovely nose and lots of fruit. It is a blend of the two Gaillac AOC red varieties, Duras, and Braucol. The Duras is said to provide the spice and the Braucol the berry fruit flavours. This is a wine I expect to improve be suitable for cellaring. I doubt it will last long in my cellar though.
The last but not least red was the Brin de Temps. This wine is much fuller, again with well integrated oak and fruit; a lovely smooth well balanced full bodied wine as the experts say. The nose led me to expect just what I found on the palate, always a good sign for me. I guess this is the real find of the day for long term storage. It is a blend of Duras, Braucol and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Anyway it was a delightful morning despite the heat and I look forward to drinking them in more favourable conditions. Tonight at dinner with some friends in fact.
The first guests in my new Bed and Breakfast suite last week were very happy with their accommodation and I am looking forward to receiving many more guests. I can provide accommodation on a nightly or longer basis. My breakfasts are just great with shining silver and linen napkins, fresh juice, and the best butter croissants all for the mini price of 55 Euros including breakfast. The internet can be accessed in the house or garden. I have also just advertised my house for a long term rental for this European winter and a month or so next summer on a site called Long Lets in France.
Village Green Labarthe-Bleys
My home, La Grange, is a pretty restored stone barn in the tiny hamlet of Labarthe-Bleys in the Tarn. Located near the medieval town of Cordes sur Ciel within the Golden Triangle of Albi and Gaillac it is perfect for exploring the ancient bastide towns in the area, discovering the history of the region and wine tasting at the local vineyards. The locals are very friendly.
Last Saturday and Sunday I went to my first wedding in France. My neighbours son married a gorgeous girl called Isabelle. If a picture is worth a thousand words why write. Here are some pictures of the wedding and the garden where the celebrations took place.
It was Saturday night, 9.45. I was watching Detective Lewis solve a crime on TV when the phone rang. It seemed as though the TV had been transported to my living room when M said “ it’s dark now we can go and steal some sunflowers. Are you up for it?” “Are you serious, I replied” “Sure am she said. Do you want to come?”. “ Sure do, said I”.
Armed with torch and secateurs I whizzed up to her place and we were off, but where to? There are fields of gorgeous sunflowers everywhere. We decided the closest was best. She was for going into the thicket so we would not leave evidence of our burglary but I was all for a swift roadside raid.
I ventured into the field with trepidation wondering out loud about snakes and M responded; “there are no snakes here, this is not Australia”. Choosing sunflowers by torchlight is not as easy as one might think and I was mindful that we were taking someone’s livelihood as these are a cash crop beautiful though they are. As the huge leaves I snipped off the stems fell to the ground I laughed as I asked “do you think these might have DNA on them. M replied “that’s why I’ve got gloves on, but when the police arrive at your house in the morning waving leaves”!!!!!!!!!! Seeing the lights of a car across the valley I remarked that I hoped they would not come our way. M said “is it the sunflower police”?
The last time I ventured into bloom burgulary was twenty or more years ago with my dear friend PK. We cut long stems of the wonderful January flowering Hedychium, or ginger lily in a park in Vaucluse in Sydney. He, being a gardening genius knew where the best ones grew. Each summer when I go back to Sydney I look for them for sale by the stem in the fruit stalls in Kings Cross. Two or three will perfume the whole house. But for now though in summer in the Tarn it is sun and sunflowers.
In the tenth century at the Abbey St. Michel in Gaillac some monks planted the first vineyards of what is now the Gaillac Wine Appellation. Last night I went wih my English neighbours Anita and Ray to an apero at this ancient Abbey.
Come for an apero! The French shorten the word aperatif to apero when they ask you round for a drink in the evening. This habit of shortening many words or worse turning lots of phrases into acronyms means a foreigner like me has to almost learn a third language in order to get along linguistically. Every second Friday night during July and August there is an apero in the garden behind the Abbey. For the princely sum of five euros you can buy a plate with olives, cheese, salami and chips along with a ticket for two glasses of wine. Then you find a table and chair and bask in the wonderful evening light on the banks of the Tarn River and listen to the band play and watch the French dance. They dance at every opportunity. No matter what the music, it is the same dance and I swear every one of them can dance at birth. A different band plays each week. Last night it was Salsa. It could be New Orleans Jazz or Country and Western. About two hundred people can fit into the grounds and it is always crowded with young and old. There seems to be no age bar at social gatherings here, unlike Australia and also I'm told the UK where neither oldies nor children are truly welcome.
While the young and not so young danced or gossiped, the children played happily in the tiny vineyard "garden" planted in the grounds. Anita commented that in England they could well be classed as "out of control" . French children are extremely well behaved and as they are taken everywhere with their parents from birth they are very well adjusted socially.
It was a great evening and watching the dancers and the happy faces of the crowd reminded how much my small enterprise Vin de Tarn has to offer for visitors to this area. My groups become more like family rather than simply clients or tourists during a lively busy week here in lovely Labarthe-Bleys. They get to experience a real Taste of the Tarn on evenings like this.
This week I am in Denmark for the graduation from Gymnasium of my grand daughter, Nicole. This event is a huge celebration for the students and is a more important milestone than university graduation. It is a centuries old tradition and certainly a very public spectacle with the population willingly being party to the celebration.
I flew from Toulouse to Copenhagen to be present on this important occasion which marks the end of the three final years of high school study. My “graduate” arrived to meet me for breakfast in town looking very chic and stylish in her graduation cap (literally a graduant's beanie) which resembles a sailors cap. They wear their cap with pride at all times for a week. Capped students are stopped in the street and congratulated on their achievement. Tourist often try to buy the cap but they are a prized possession which the recipients keep, pretty much forever. School friends write messages in the lining and bite the rim and leave their teeth marks for good luck.
Saturday was the formal school ceremony with speeches and songs followed by each graduating student, the girls in white, receiving their diploma. As you can imagine the following drinks and nibbles provided by the school is a noisy affair with a hundred students and their families taking photos and blowing horns and whistles.
Each class then drives off in an assortment of hired and decorated trucks for a day of feasting and drinking. In the "olden days" this was a horse drawn vehicle. Once the trucks leave the school, their journey takes them to the home of every member of the class for sandwiches and drinks. Our job after the ceremony was to hotfoot it home to prepare for the class visit. As Nicole’s truck arrived the loud chanting of Nicole, Nicole announced their arrival, then a rush of girls and boys into her home to be feted, fed, congratulated and photographed yet again. The students drink copious amounts of alcohol during the day and make lots of noise. The wagon, truck or whatever vehicle they’ve chosen is driven at all times by the hired drivvr of the truck so parent worry about the consequences of this orgy of eating and drinking is minimized. The visit to each home is kept strictly to fifteen minutes and they arrive and leave in a great whirl of happiness and laughter.
Last night we went to celebrate at FIAT, a restaurant in Copenhagen. I had booked a table and requested to be seated in the courtyard. We arrived and were shown to what had to be the worst table, in front of the cloakroom and kitchen doors. We asked if perhaps a better table might be possible and a few minutes later were shown to what was arguably the best table in the restaurant. And it was all because of the power of that cap. Thank you and congratulations Nicole.
Walking is taken quite seriously here in the Tarn. One has many choices, from the major pilgrim routes to a leisurely walk in the many nearby spectacularly beautiful forests, lanes and fields.
I recently joined a Walking Club and now go off somewhere different each Monday morning with a very friendly group of people. The familiar tu rather than the more formal vous is used from the first meeting and kisses on each cheek are exchanged all round as a greeting along with lots of bonjours and comment ca va, or how are you? I have often seen such groups here and there and made some enquiries about joining a group but it took an invitation from one of my neighbours to get around to it.
The first week was a little strange as we walked back here to my village of Labarthe-Bleys and took a very familiar walk. Each walk is led by a member of the group and something unusual or interesting is included. During a morning in the Forest de Gresigne we saw a hidden ruined glass blowing factory from the eighteenth century. The characteristically green glass made in this forest was famous in that era. We stopped at a tiny hamlet with lovely church where the mayor came to greet us. Catholics were buried in the cemetery close to the church and the Protestants on the other side of the road. The protestant part now belongs to our guide and forms part of his garden. When he was a child his great grandmother told him that after a big storm they would find bones in their well. It seems that almost all glassblowers were Protestants. Last week we drove about twenty minutes up into the Aveyron and walked through the most beautiful country side imaginable. As summer has not arrived yet, each walk has been in unusually cool weather. Because of the recent rain, we found lots of mushrooms this week. June is the month to find the delicious delicately flavoured girolle mushroom. There are no walks in July and August, normally the very hot months.
A number of friends have taken one and two week pilgrim walks to Santiago de Compestella in Spain but walking the twenty to thirty kilometers a day required is a bit daunting for me. These very important routes cross much of the South of France on their way to Santiago de Compestella to the shrine of the apostle St James. In medieval times the pilgrims wore a cockle shell, usually around their neck to mark them as pilgrims under the protection of the order of St James. It was also used as a drinking vessel. On the road up to the old city of Cordes sur Ciel there is a house with a cockle shell carved above the front door and I have often promised to find out more but so far ....
Coquilles St Jacques although well known was just a delicious seafood dish for me before I came here and learned about the coquille and the pilgrims. My friend Sabine, who lives in Brittany where delicious seafood is part of the daily diet, decided to make Coquilles St Jacques for a special and big O birthday party for her husband last year. We spent a couple of days trying to find sixty real cockle shells and not the plastic serving ones sold everywhere. Usually they are easy to buy but not that year. Here is Sabine's recipe, for six not sixty people. Mushrooms are often included in the recipe for this dish
Coquilles St Jacques.
Half a kilo of Scallops
3/4 cup of white wine
1/2 cup water
Juice of a lemon
1 small onion finely chopped.
6 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup cream
Salt and pepper
Breadcrumbs
Grated gruyere cheese
Scallops
Simmer the scallops gently in the water, lemon juice and wine, mixture for a few minutes. Do no overcook them as they will become tough Sauce
Melt butter and onions and add the flour. Stir for a few moments and then add some of the wine and water mixture. Stir until the sauce is a little thicker than the consistency you want and then add the cream. This is basically a simple béchamel sauce with a nice fishy flavour.
Top with breadcrumbs and grated cheese.
Pop under a griller for a few moments to melt the cheese.
Another very quick and simple variation of mine is to chop an onion finely and cook it for a few minutes in butter. Then add the scallops and gently cook for four or five minutes. Flame the mixture with cognac and pour over a bed of steamed rice to serve.
