Anniversary Outings

 On Wednesday, Earl and I celebrated our 31st anniversary. "Celebrated" is a bit of an overblown statement. 

The highlight of the day came in the afternoon, following a few hours of teaching. Jim and Theresa picked us up in their VW Golf with the snazzy red mirrors and we zoomed about 45 minutes south of here to Maury. Well, past Maury and the more heavily visited wineries there to MA, Mas Amiel, another winery, with a difference. 

The winery has jugs, known as dame Jeanne, setting outside in the sun. I'd always thought the sun was bad for wine, but apparently this winery has different theories. We would be the judge of that!

The dame Jeanne wine jugs sitting in the sun.

Vineyards and wine jugs and the hills beyond. 

We wandered in and looked around the showroom before walking up to the counter. Most tasting rooms have wine stewards who speak English, and this one did as well, although he got hung up a few times and we encouraged him to say it in French, thinking we would still understand. They usually ask what kind of wine we like. They serve the wine from weakest to strongest taste, so usually whites and rosés, first, followed by reds. Earl and I are red wine drinkers, but we have been won over by a few rosés lately. 

Post tasting. After each wine, we swish the water in our glass and pour it into the bowl. 

He started us with a mellow rosé. I've found that people frequently want a rosé in the summer, so knew we would buy a bottle for 8,90 euros. Then he moved onto fortified wines. Fortified wines are similar to port, they are mixed with other, stronger alcohol. The fortified white would work well as an aperitif. 

The four of us. 

The fortified red we tasted first, although it had Theresa's favorite label, purple and blue, did not win us over. A 2012 fortified wine was so smooth, but pricey. 

Then we moved on to the oxidized wines, those that sit out in the sun. They were labeled for their age --20 years old, 30 years old, 69 from grapes grown in the late 60s. The 20 tasted good. The 30 tasted like raisins. But the 69, oh, the 69, tasted like heaven in my mouth. 

The wine steward did a good job selling it, pointing out that it's like buying a good bottle of whiskey, you only drink a little and on special occasions. It lasts for years. 

As we were checking out, the steward gave us a gift of a bottle of wine since it was our anniversary. I figured it was a throw-away bottle they kept to hand out free, but Jim found it on the list and pointed out it was a 30 euro bottle of wine. That might not be much to spend on wine in the States, but anything over 10 euros seems expensive when you live in the land of free flowing, inexpensive wine. 

Chairs outside the tasting room. 

Us outside the tasting room

We drove home through the sunshine, admiring the mountains and the endless undulation of trees around us.

The lane leading up to the winery.

 We stopped to harass our friend Steve who we saw along the side of the road preparing for a time trial on his bicycle. It's fun to run into friends miles away from home. 

Then we walked to a nearby restaurant for a simple meal with Jim and Theresa, sitting inside because the weather had taken a turn to the chilly. 

Not a bad way to celebrate living in France and that day 31 years ago we pledged our love in front of our friends and family.  

In Search of the Sun

The weather forecast called for rain in our hometown in Quillan France. Since I just recently added a second day off each week, I couldn’t stand the idea of sitting at home watching the rain fall. 

Instead, I searched the weather app and saw that the rain was avoiding the area east of us. We planned to visit the city Narbonne and a vineyard nearby, along with our friend Derrick.

The Cathedral St. Just et Saint Pasteur

Inside the Cathedral, a beam of light from a stained-glass window illuminated me.
I did not ascend or have any visions, however. Perhaps it was just International Women's Day. 

The church had some amazing gargoyles. Many of them weren't in the sun so didn't photograph well. 

Narbonne has a canal running through it and a number of restaurants were open for "to-go" food. We ordered and carried our food to a wall along the canal. A number of young people were eating their lunch along the canal too. It was nice to have a meal out because the restaurants in France have been closed since October 30th. 

A cool bridge with houses on it in the background. 

After Narbonne, we went on a bit of a wild goose chase to find a winery that we have enjoyed some bottles of red from. Gerard Bertrand. The winery has a red called Tautavel, which is a town south of here, and we went to do some tasting. 

This golden orange wine is new for them. It can replace a rosé, but didn't
impress me too much. I'm not much of a  rosé fan. 

We did a degustation, a wine tasting. The young man who was in charge of it was from Belfast, Ireland, but had majored in French in college. We tasted seven wines as he explained each one. Pinot noir, syrah, grenache. We bought four bottles, but agreed that the Tautavel wine we have found in grocery stores for 5 or 6 euros, which isn't available at the winery, was actually better. Luckily, my friend Derrick purchased a case of those yesterday and he was willing to share. 

Afterward, we headed to the beach -- Narbonne Plage. 

The wind and curly hair, say no more. 

The sun shone on us for awhile

We bought some crepes from a stand, and unfortunately, when I went to sit on the wall at the beach, mine flew into the sand. I didn't need a crepe anyway. 

Earl with his coffee and crepe that did not blow away. Crème de marron - chestnut, ick. 

What a lovely day out exploring France. 

France Book Tours -- Grape Expectations

Since I dream of someday moving to France, I love to read memoirs of other families' adventures as they settle into that beautiful country.
Few authors have written as honestly about the challenges of starting a new life in France as Caro Feely does in her book Grape Expectations. The memoir drew me in so I kept reading, sometimes just to get to the end in hopes that things would turn out better for her.  I couldn't imagine trying to rehab a barely livable house while raising a baby and a preschooler and my husband spending every waking moment in the vineyard.
Here's a passage that shows Feely and her husband discovering the ruin they have purchased in Saussignac in the Aquitaine region of France:

The house looked worse than the photos had promised. The shutters were eaten away by rot and termites....

The fence around the 3-metre-high terrace was rusted away, making it a deathtrap for children. The place was thoroughly rundown. I looked at the date 1737, etched above the cellar and thought 'Oh my God, what have we done?' then swallowed back a wave of tears and tried to concentrate on the view. The natural splendour of the valley sprawling below, decked out in the bright greens of summer, was breathtaking. 

Feely pulls no punches as she relates the dire financial circumstances she and her family faced, along with the thoughts that the winery would pull her marriage apart.

I enjoyed this book and rooted for Feely and her family throughout. Sometimes the book went into much more detail than I needed about how to make wine and how to farm grapes. But I think some people, like my husband, would enjoy those details, so I've recommended that he read it.
One plodding section of the book went into details about biodynamics, which is extra organic. It's an interesting idea, but again too much detail for someone like me who wanted to hear about the experience of living in France.

A side effect of reading this book was the yearning for wine. I really wanted to drink a lot of wine while I was reading it, no matter the time of day. I also looked up the specific wine that Caro and her husband are creating, and I'd love to visit their vineyard one day to stay in their guest house or take a wine class, so in that way, the book is definitely a success too.


One of my favorite quotes from the book, is actually a quote from Galileo who said, "Wine is sunlight held together by water." That's a beautiful image and encourages me to raise a glass in toast to both Galileo and Caro Feely.