Still More Wine
After our adventures with Reisling on Saturday, we carried home a modest half dozen bottles. We would have bought more, but we didn't have our grocery cart. However, we still had a ticket to the show and it didn't end until yesterday. Consequently, I elected to continue the research in some other directions after my Monday class. After all, there were in the neighbourhood of 800 exhibitors from all over France, so we only scratched the surface on the first pass.The ticket admitted two, so I conscripted a fellow from my French class, IS, to join me. After some lunch to prepare the stomach, we set off trailing the chariot. I again made a list of medal winners, this time focusing on light reds and, mostly because I like to say it, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. With these mapped out, we hopped from one little booth to another. Traditional, grand cru, vieille vignes, and on to the next. We tried to stay focused but occasionally digressed to something a vintner wanted to present.
I took notes at each stall, upon which to base later purchases. I paced myself fairly well and kept an eye on my blood alcohol, but by two-thirty things started to get a little fuzzy. IS had enough and departed, and I had a sandwich to soak up the alcohol. Talking to the people behind the counters was often much of the fun, but there came a point where the wine wasn't helping my French, even to my ears. After another hour or so, I could see an end in sight to any productive discernment, and since I also wanted to do a tour of Gewürztraminer, I switched my focus. Around five o'clock, I took out the notes that I'd scratched on the information sheets and business cards of the vintners and sorted out the ones with asterisks. Then I dashed around the floor again filling the cart. I brought the haul home, intact, on the rush hour bus.
Fourteen bottles, including mostly Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris but with a few Chinon: nothing to impress the serious cave-ist, but a good start for us - and just a whole lot of FUN.
posted 29.11.05
1 Comments:
We asked some of the producers about the Parisian disinterest in Alsation wine, but didn't learn much. Mostly they just wanted us to tell our local wine shops that we were interested. With about 800 vintners represented, it's not that there were so many from Alsace; but there were more than we could get 'round to in one afternoon.
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