Fly has a visitor. A friend made in Kitzbuhel at the German language school. ‘Chablis’ (a pseudonym of course) , a Sydney student of winemaking, nearing the end of the degree, was headed for the Mosel in Germany to work in the vintage, and doing a quick German top-up before hand. Now, with the vintage over in the Mosel, although not yet finished here, she is having a few days to see the Alsace wine region before heading back home.
It is very educational for fly to be in the presence of one who really does know what they are talking about when referring to the blackcurrent bouquet or the sweaty saddle leather undertone. She brought a very nice off-dry spatlese Riesling from the Bernkastle vintage. (Does that sound as though I have learned something already?) It was very good, and the bottle disappeared with the evening yesterday.
Today we have been to some villages, but most are very quiet on a Monday, having exhausted themselves over a weekend of hosting tour buses etc. So we headed in to Selestat, with ideas of visiting the superlative Bread Museum and sampling the wares in its restaurant. It also was experiencing Monday-itis, so we ended up having lunch at an excellent little place that served wonderful tartes flambees ( above - of which I managed to eat the lot this time). This was accompanied by an Alsace pinot gris, very soft. (As I write, I am sipping a pinot blanc, also from Alsace, which is an early press, and so somewhat acidic.) After a nap to cope with lunch, we have enjoyed a late-afternoon gluhwein based on a Cotes du Rhone Grenache.
The wine-talk reminds me of a wonderful recent read. A gadflights reading friend mentioned Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, which I had not read, so I did so, and then followed it up with two more of Paul Torday’s novels, The irresistible inheritance of Wilberforce, and The girl on the landing. Wilberforce is a wine story, the title’s eponymous character having inherited a cellar of 100,000 bottles of wine. His life thereafter belies the in vino veritas saying. But one learns something of the language of oenology, and such interesting facts as that a bottle of Petrus 1982 can command £3,000. (Wilberforce manages to drink two full bottles, alone, in a restaurant in the hilarious opening scene of the novel. Wonderfully managed by Torday).
Peggy and Phillipe, the owners of the establishment here, took us for a tour of their set-up, wanting to show a very interested Australian wine-maker-to-be how it is done in Alsace. Their 17 hectares in four different locations around the village produced 90,000 bottles of Sylvaner, pinot blanc, Muscat, Riesling, pinot gris, gewurtztraminer, and pinot noir this vintage. They grow and harvest the grapes, make the wine, bottle it and ship it out, all in the family. (With some additional help in the harvesting and pruning stages). The wine-making ‘caves’ are under the gite I am in and the adjoining home they live in themselves. Today, the big truck was being loaded with cases which Phillip’s father will drive to Normandy tomorrow to a distribution warehouse there. Last week he did a similar trip into the South of France.
‘Chablis’ is excited about being somewhere where she can cook, so has a chicken in the oven, with lots of fresh vegetables. Sure to go well with the pinot blanc.
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