Scarabs and Cognac

I have just returned from a short break in France near Cognac.

Easyjet catapulted us to Bordeaux airport amongst dramatic thunder storms. Relieved to be on the ground again we found our hire car and headed towards our friends rented mill house near Barbezieux.

The car journey weaved between vineyards, corn and sunflower fields. The mill was in a very rural area and nice and quiet, but we were not alone. The night before a storm the fields produced plagues of huge black beetles and other peculiar insects, not out of place in the film 'The Mummy'. If the Met Office was run by black scarabs then I am sure predictions would be much more accurate. There was also a local farmer who took an interest in us, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye for the bikini clad women around the pool.

Naturally everywhere was bone dry, even the sunflowers looked slightly jaded and fed up with the heat. I wondered how much water the vineyards needed during this hot spell. Apparently not much at all. Give vines an adequate amount of water and they decide life it good and there is no point in moving on. They just sit back and relax. Be slightly more draconian and suddenly they produce lots of lovely lush plump appendages, reproducing wildly in an attempt to move to another more comfortable area. Of course there is a fine balance to be drawn managing the stress.

It was a wonderful short break and I drank many wines, somewhat over enthusiastically. I have to admit to only remembering a few of them which I have listed on my map. One that stuck in my mind was Pineau Des Charentes. Some of the best things are a result of mistakes and this is no exception. Back in 1589 a wine maker in Burie accidentally put some grape juice in a barrel containing some Cognac and hey presto a new drink was born. This wine comes in a white and rose variety and is sweet and delicious.

I Know Kung Fu

Have you ever sat in a restaurant when someone studies the wine list, then looks up with a smug smile like they have just proved Fermat's Last Theorem?

There is a thin line between the 'wine bore' and applying some practical knowledge with little fuss. This year I have started to realise that there is an endless amount of information to 'absorb'. You cannot just plug into 'The Matrix' and come out saying 'I Know Kung Fu'. My voyage of discovery on the wine lake is turning out to be slow, graceful and most enjoyable.
I managed to catch an episode of 'The F Word', and watched Gordon Ramsey give Sir Cliff Richard a blind tasting. Cliff dissed his new own brand wine 'Vida Nova' (from the Algarve), which was very amusing. He likened it to vinaigrette, and then rediscovered some interesting Anglo-Saxon words when he was shown the label.

I think I will give that wine a miss. Perhaps he should take a leaf out of Paul Newman's book, marketing it as salad dressing instead. 'Cliff's Own' vinaigrette dressing. Nice.

Life Through a Lens

I was lucky enough to see a performance by the 'Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain' this weekend. I had no idea what to expect and ended up having a great evening. I must have gained a couple more smile lines as a result. They seemed to revel in the inadequacies of their four stringed instruments, not a guitar inferiority complex in sight.

There were lots of the audience with cameras glued to their faces, as is much the case these days. I often have to weave an intricate commuting path dodging the many invisible barriers painted by tourists snapping in my home town. After getting bored of all the polite avoidance tactics I normally end up making a point of being the random passer by who ends up in someone's family album.

It's important to fully immerse yourself in the moment and not continuously look at the world through the eyes of your camera phone, or some other bag of cheap, mass produced chips.
Some of the ridiculous descriptions of wine almost make you forget that it is there to be drunk and enjoyed. Over analysis can be like a lens, detaching yourself from the true purpose of a bottle. Swilling, gurgling, frothing, gesticulating and then spitting are not really in my vocabulary. Relax and drink. A glass over dinner with good company is what it is all about.

Rocket Fuel

What a week. North Korea decide to test 7 missiles, making the rest of the world feel a little uneasy, and America fires the Space Shuttle into orbit.

Recently scientists found a cloud of alcohol in Space, obviously stupidly large and far, far away. Unfortunately it is methanol which is not advisable to drink (if the Shuttle astronauts ever have a bad day and magically procure a warp drive). This point was made very clear in 1986 when the Italians had problems with large quantities of methanol in some of their wine causing illness and death. Ethanol is the normal type of alcohol in wine. Add an innocent 'm' and all hell breaks loose. Rocket fuel and antifreeze.

Luckily the Italians seem to have enjoyed a wine renaissance since those poisoned days.