75ish – Leaving France and the 100 Wine Challenge

Counting the last few entries’ creative accounting and the two extras at the bottom of the list, this glass of wine would be number 75. Considering I kind of stopped recording and counting after a while, I’m still pretty happy about getting three-quarters of the way there in this way, and pretty confident that in reality it would have been at least 100 (if only I’d been more diligent about the photos).

my last dinner in France.

The night before I left France, I thought my last dinner there should be a memorable, very ‘French’ one, so despite being a vegetarian I opted for duck with foie gras and more bits of duck for good measure at a restaurant in Opera (just because it was a special occasion). And some wine, of course. With a whole lot of new friends that I had made while there. I was so sad to leave, especially to leave Paris, but I know one day I will be back there again to live.

Leaving France meant that no longer would any wines ‘count’ (as they had to be consumed in France), but it also meant I left with a broader understanding of French wines and the types that I like (pretty much all of them). I won’t be staring blankly at a wine list anymore as I know better which types/regions go with which foods/seasons. I might not know so much about particular vintages but I can appreciate the process that goes into selecting grapes and why that matters, and I have more confidence in my own palate and feel more comfortable at tastings.

So… now I feel I have done the best I could (under the circumstances) to wrap up this list and can move onto the next 100!

71 and 72, at least, on Classy Bastille Day

so classy.

By the time Bastille Day (14 July) rolled around I had celebrated graduation, my birthday, done a road trip through the Loire Valley, and had a few ‘final catch ups’ with different people as we all prepared to leave France. And there was at least one ‘bring all the food and wine left in your house’ dinner organised, too. So amongst the celebratory champagnes and au revoir aperitifs and wines with dinners, I think it’s pretty safe to say I tasted at least five more new wines by Bastille Day, so I’m up to wine number 70.

Bastille Day itself was a nice, sunny, warm day. After exploring the artwork at the Grand Palais, we headed to the Champ de Mars (i.e. the long lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower) to claim some prime picnic real estate. They weren’t too strict when we got there, but there was an increasing crackdown on wine brought by picnickers, so we made sure to decant our reds into empty cranberry juice containers, just in case. So classy. I know I had at least two different reds at this picnic because I remember decanting them.

The most amazing part of the picnic was during the fireworks. Sure, we had already spent a few hours playing games, eating a whole jar of nutella, and other general merry-making. But we were also trying to meet up with other friends, and given how crowded it was, it was nearly impossible to see anyone (and the mobile phone networks all seemed to be jammed). So we couldn’t call or text our friends and once it got dark and they still hadn’t arrived, we thought they must have abandoned the idea of trying to find us altogether.

La Marseillaise started playing (and I sang along with pride!); the fireworks started, and we oohed and ahhed at the bleu, blanc, and rouge. We commented on how revolutionary and modern the music was (i.e. European electronic…) and how no American national celebration would ever be as edgy. And after a few minutes, out of nowhere, we hear:

“OHHHHHH! YEEEEEEEEEAHHH!” and two tall male figures come and start hugging us all in the dark.

It was our friends, who had actually managed to find us, and they were pretty damn excited about it. Someone had dropped a pin on a map in a group Whatsapp message at the start of the picnic to help others locate the spot, and apparently this was enough for their phone GPS to go on to find us. They had not only found us in the massive crowd, but also done so in the dark, with very limited connectivity. The reason they took so long was not, in fact, because they were had to deal with the crowd/dark/connectivity issues, but because they had been stopped outside for having bottles of wine. They weren’t allowed to bring them in, so instead of having them confiscated, they decided to drink them. All of them. With a few passers-by, but mostly, on their own, just outside the Champ de Mars.

Let’s call this 65 – Bourgogne

 

This photo was taken while touring the Marche aux Vins in Beaune in June. It was one of the highlights of an impromptu weekend away with friends exploring the region. We decided to go on a whim early one morning (/late the night before after Fete de la Musique in Paris); I emailed a few airbnb hosts, found an apartment in Dijon, and we were on our way that afternoon.

The next day we googled a few different wine tasting options and found this one in nearby Beaune. We were each given a wine glass to taste a number of their wines, including some of their premier crus, and could take the glass home as a souvenir. The tour was entirely self-guided, with bottles spaced at strategic points along the way, where we could stop to observe or read something about the winemaking process. Basically, we could pour our own glasses and drink the whole time.

It’s no wonder I didn’t photograph all the bottles.

le tastevin

I didn’t want to have to pack a glass in my suitcase so at the end of the tour I asked to swap it for the tastevin instead, the traditional vessel used for winetasting (as it holds a smaller portion). The only reason I remember the place name is because it is printed on the souvenir.

So, with this information, I checked their website and concluded – since I went with the glass option, I must have tasted 12 wines that day.

Twelve. And this not including the wines that we had with our dinners in Dijon, bringing the wine count up to at least 65 by this point in time. I thought the Bourgogne region was predominantly a red wine region (‘burgundy’ – duh…) but the white wines turned out to be pretty enjoyable as well. I do remember that the first few wines we tasted were pretty good, some in the middle were okay, but they saved their really good ones (presumably the premier cru) for the end – just when you are feeling generous and you are near their store and there are plenty of helpful staff to assist you with your purchase, of course.

I’ve Lost Count.

As mentioned in my previous post:

The novelty of the challenge kind of wore off I guess, and I was too busy enjoying to remember to record things.

So while it appears that I’ve just tasted the 51st wine for the year, it is more likely that this number is actually higher. I’ve listed a few that I distinctly remember having at the end of the list here, and I’m now making my best attempt to recall a few more based on flimsy photographic evidence. I hate leaving goals unattained! Especially with the end of year approaching, and I want to close off as much of this list as I can before I embark on a new one (even though the deadline for the 100 French Wines in France challenge was when I left the country 6 months ago, according to my original goals). So, just bear with the creative (but not completely inaccurate) accounting that follows…

#50 (and #51 in the background) – P5 in Barbizon

Bordeaux, 2011, Saint-Vincent de Pertignas

P5 had a very distinct feel to it, in a good way. It was dramatically less intense than the rest of the year had been. We were all comfortable with ourselves and each other and despite the uncertainty of the future, somehow okay with that prospect, because of what we now had. People returned from their breaks, exchanges, and so on, filling the Fonty campus to almost breaking point (it helped that the weather was finally turning nice). It went by far too quickly.

Towards the start of P5 I was invited to dinner at my friends’ place. They had just moved into an old house in nearby Barbizon. The house was filled with antiques and artwork, including a rather confronting painting of a nude and another of an anthropomorphic dog, which watched over the dinner table while we ate (the dog painting, not the nude). Speaking of, this was dinner:

I really wonder why I left, sometimes.

It was a lovely evening where I got to reconnect with old friends who had been away, and meet new friends who had just arrived in France. As usual, great food, great wine, and great company. The hallmarks of almost every day of P5, I think.

[Note: Although I only photographed the details of one of the bottles of wine we drank, there is evidence that I tasted at least one other (the bottle in the background) during this dinner. Just trying to justify why the count is only apparently at the halfway point when my year was already at the 80% mark, especially given it only took about 2 weeks for the first 20 wines and I don’t think my pace changed that much. The novelty of the challenge kind of wore off I guess, and I was too busy enjoying to remember to record things (which explains why the retrospective detective work was so complicated). It didn’t help that by this time I had dropped my phone, cracked the screen, and switched to a different phone temporarily – so I was even less concerned about taking photos.]

#49 – Mystery Medoc

Chateau La Gorre, 2009, Medoc, Cru Bourgeois

Happy Boxing Day.

I don’t know where or for what occasion this wine was drunk. It looks like it was at someone’s house, but I don’t recognise the background furniture or crockery. It does look like a very good bottle of wine, though.

I tried to imagine myself walking the streets of Fontainebleau, picturing all my friends’ houses and kitchens and dining rooms, and I’m still drawing a blank.

Maybe it was a group dinner or drinks after one of us moved into a new apartment, but it doesn’t look right.

It remains a mystery.

#47 & 48 – Smarties

Chateau Saint-Floran, 2008, Bordeaux Superieur (the nicer wine that I wanted to remember)

Some nicer wine, and some standard cheap supermarket wine (not toooo bad), to accompany dinner prepared by a few members of the same study group, who were named something to do with Smarties (if I’m not mistaken), and who also all lived in the same building in Fontainebleau. Apparently, it was the night straight after the Hameau de Montmelian party. I remember taking the first photo because I particularly enjoyed the wine (the Bordeaux Superieur) and wanted to remember it. (This, after weeks of forgetting to photograph wines…)

Cotes du Rhone (the supermarket wine)

After the dinner there was a party in another nearby village, Bourron-Marlotte. I can’t remember what was the occasion, other than further ‘Singtegration’. There was most likely more wine involved but I didn’t take any further photos… the record-keeping starts to deteriorate pretty badly from here…

#46 – Hameau de Montmelian

Montlouis, 2009, ??-sur-Loire, Sec

All I can tell from the date, corresponding emails, and what looks like gravel in the background of this photo, was that it was taken at the Hameau de Montmelian (or lower Monty as I tend to think of it), the smaller house at the bottom of the estate belonging to the Chateau de Montmelian. No particular occasion or theme, just that there was nothing on that night, and they kindly hosted a party to encourage more ‘Singtegration’ at the start of P4, I think.

I believe this was the party where my new ‘BFF’ introduced me to an improvement to my standard gin & tonic with cucumber (using Hendrick’s, obviously): the addition of black pepper. Unconventional, but not bad.

 

#45 – Argo, red wine, and potato chips

Chateau Haut Rolla…?, 2010, Cotes de Bordeaux

I spent the P2-P3 break mostly in Fontainebleau, with a few short trips to the Loire Valley and Paris doing some touristy things with the other Fonty ‘lifers’. I thought spending those few days at home would allow me to focus on my job search, which didn’t really happen. What did happen was that some Canadian friends and I took over an amphi at uni to watch Argo on the big(ish) screen, bringing our own snacks, and this wine. Good movie and pretty good wine, even if we did have to drink it from paper cups.

#44 – With my “spouse” in Paris

Nicolas Feuillatte, limited edition Brut Reserve, champagne

In February a German friend from uni invited me to spend a day in Paris – lunch, tour of the city, and dinner on the Seine – as part of a company-sponsored event. Each of the employees, many of whom I am also good friends with, could bring a guest. Although most were bringing their WAGs they were not (to my knowledge) limited to bringing partners/SOs. My friend has a long-term girlfriend but she was in Germany at the time, so he was taking the opportunity to hang out with a bunch of good friends, including me, on their company’s dime. It was a fun day, filled with food and wine. I only managed to capture this one photo of the champagne we had at the bar before we headed to dinner (my wine count is waaay off by now).

To confirm the details of the day, my friend and I had a conversation pretty much along these lines, and it’s because of this discussion that the day became such a hilarious memory.

Him: Hannah, just checking you’re still free to come to the [company] event on Saturday?

Me: Sure, just let me know what time and do I need to bring anything?

Him: No, it will be all provided because you’re my spouse.

Me: Your WHAT?

Him: My spouse.

Me: You realise that means wife, right?

Apparently, at the German offices of this company, instead of using the term ‘guest’ or even ‘partner’ to describe the person whom one brings to an event, they use the word ‘spouse’. He didn’t realise that in English this translated as ‘husband/wife’. So on the RSVP/guest list which was emailed to all the attendees, I was recorded as his ‘spouse’. No other office of this company uses that term, and when I introduced myself as a ‘uni friend’ the poor woman who organised the event was so confused. We laughed about it for a long time.