Wine for a false beginner: France part 2 (2015 – 2016)

 How I am going back to France and getting more conscious about wine by itself and wine-food pairing

Next step and maybe even the true beginning of my love for wine came in 2015 when I moved to France for the second time. I generally stayed away from the cheapest bottles, it was possible to get nice wines (for my standards) for just 3-4 euros. I’m sure that I still tried 1.5 euro wines though. And I still do sometimes, not out of necessity but rather curiosity. One of the biggest surprises from that time is Roche Mazet Merlot from Pays d’Oc that costs only 2.30 euros. I still buy it sometimes, especially when I want to be nostalgic about my time in Angers. This also became “our wine” for me and my friend Berit, who studied there with me.

Before moving to France again, I had been volunteering for different twin-cities (my hometown Võru and Chambray-les-Tours not too far from Angers) events.

Thanks to that, I became friends with Caroline and Christian, an amazingly cool couple who loves to travel and meet new people. And also Dominique, a music school director and teacher from Chambray-les-Tours.

Caroline and Christian welcomed me to their place during school holidays. I discovered that it was completely fine to drink wine at noon over lunch and even more during dinner. I discovered aperitifs, digestives and plenty of wines in between the two. My friends introduced me to new wines, both sparkling and still from Loire Valley region.

Almost every day, we drove around to visit castles and cities. Every time, we had lunch in some typical French restaurant. Caroline and Christian wanted to show me as much French culture as possible so I always asked their suggestions for food and wine.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a habit to take pictures of my meals like I have now so there are not so many pictures of the food or wine. But I believe that some pictures of our trips would be appropriate nevertheless.

 

Château d'Amboise

A lunch in the restaurant Feu d’Amboise (a fire of Amboise). An important comment from my diary, we drank red Chinon wine.

We visited the city of Chinon some time later. By then I already knew that they are famous for their wine.

Views to the city from viewpoints

Vineyards of course

One of my absolute favourites was Villandry castle with its incredible gardens. I liked so much there, that I asked to be taken there three times. The gardens are different every season depending the seasonal plants/flowers and every time it has been beyond description. You have to see yourself to understand that kind of beauty and massive work behind it.

Amazing and cute Rivau castle just before Toussaint (Halloween)  

 

All together I visited at least 15 castles in the Loire Valley.

If I only knew how many wines I tried around those visits.

One time, Caroline and Christian took me to Christian parents’ place where they have a family wine cellar – an actual underground cellar, full of only wines. No potatoes, no carrots.

I could see how important wine was. It was meant to be enjoyed on its own or with food or cooked with (onion soup with white wine, red meat dishes with red wine). Wine wasn’t reserved for some special occasions. Any day could have been an occasion to drink wine.

Christian cooked me my first onion soup with white wine. I have never managed to make as good one myself although I observed carefully how he did it nor have I had a better one in any restaurant.

And a lady, should never fill her glass herself.

As a shy guest I of course never rushed to fill my own glass. In my mind it was the host who decided how much is enough. Christian was always very generous. During one meal, my glass got empty. I was eating with Caroline, Christian and their son Theo. Theo was sitting next to me but he was never very talkative or interested that I was there. That one time, Caroline made a remark to Theo that he should have noticed that my glass was empty and then to me that a lady should never fill her own glass as there should always be a gentleman who takes care of it. A few moments passed and I had emptied my water glass (there was always water when there was wine). As soon as I put it down, Theo asked if I wanted a refill. Caroline was not around but later I told her what happened. She was glad that her remark had stuck and Theo was behaving like a gentleman should.