First Visitors to Chateau P&C

Fun Stuff:

Our first visitors have come. Today, our friends, Lars-Åke (pronounced "Laash okay", emphasis on the O), his lovely soon-to-be-wife Esti, and their adorable son William arrived from Belgium. We hiked up the hill on the way to the Bastille, but we only made it 1/10 of the way before it was time to stop and drink. I don't blame anyone. It was the wine's fault. It was screaming at us from inside the bag. It is beautiful up there. You can see that in the previous image.



I already made Lars-Åke mad because I put his Westmalle Tripple in the fridge on it's side. This type of beer has yeast remaining in it, and needs to stand up right otherwise the yeast will pour into the glass.

Wine Stuff:

I went to the big grocery store, Carrefour, and bought wine. It was so cheap I just decided to buy everything I wanted. It cost me $100 for 15 bottles. No joke!

I love all types on wines, countries, and regions equally, but I just have to mention the fact that I can find 5 and 6 euro Alsacien Gewurztraminer here. Alsacien Gewurz, I can honestly say, is my favorite wine/grape/region. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say, Alsace soil allows for a vast diversity of flavor, and I love every variation of flavor on this grape.

happy drinking,
-PMo

Finally in Grenoble!

Fun Stuff:

We finally moved to France. We have been here only a week, and I am already starting to feel at home. We are still waiting for our refrigerator to be delivered, so we are eating out a lot. That has its good and bad sides. The food is great, and we don't have to cook it. On the other hand, we are spending A LOT of money, and it is less relaxing, less cozy.

We hiked up to the Bastille, on a hillside, just across the river from us. It is about a mile hike up hill, and we are not in the best shape of our lives. Very tough hike, but it was quite pretty as you can see here.



Wine Stuff:

So I don't have any specific wine to tell you about yet, but of course I have imbibed a lot of new wines. I do want to say that the price difference between French wine, in France, and virtually any wine in the U.S. is dramatic. So far I have only been to small grocery stores to shop. Nevertheless, I have not paid more than $6 for a bottle of wine, and I have purchased at the top end of what is available. The most expensive French wine I have seen was about $8. The most expensive wine in general was $11 (California). Don't get me wrong; you can buy expensive wine if you wish. There are two key issues at work here.

1 The average wine is better here than in the U.S.

2 French wine is just dirt cheap

I will enjoy life here :)

-PMo

Too Much Fun and Boring Wine

Fun Stuff:

Lately there has been nothing but FUN STUFF. I have had too much fun in fact. I am funned out. The date of departure is just around the corner. We, and all of our friends, are trying to cram in as much as we can before we leave. Truth be told, I am tired. I need a break. I think I am just going to leave the country.

Wine Stuff:

Too much wine to remember lately. Thanks to the, above-mentioned, too much fun, there has been no stopping the flow of wine. I can say, however, that I have not tasted anything too spectacular lately.

With that said I want to mention a phenomenon I have noticed. I don't have the wine importation facts to back this up, so it would be nice to know what other people think on the subject. I think that the wines we produce and import to the U.S. all taste the same.

Bold statement I know, but it is a bit of an exaggeration to make a point. In my travels I have tasted wine from all over the planet in many different locations. What I have noticed is that the wines in Europe, imported or local, have a broader range of flavor and character than those in the U.S. I think the U.S. follows more closely to taste trends, and like many markets, we tend to stay close to what sells best. In my opinion, that makes it hard to find "different" wine.

Just a Theory.

-PMo

EVOLUTION: Lucky Number 9 Wine

Fun Stuff:

My friend, Brandy, is coming to town tomorrow. That will be fun. We don't have any plans really. Just hanging out with friends, maybe visit a vineyard or two. I am sure we will have fun, and thus the fitting title fun stuff.

Wine Stuff:

So I said I would let you in on Evolution, "Lucky number 9". Evolution is a great white blend from Sokol Blosser. I will describe it, first, relative to another wine, Caymus Conundrum. Caymus is a popular and well-respected producer. Their Conundrum white blend can be quite good. Thanks to the many grape varietals used in it, it has a lot of character and layers. With that said, it has two faults. One, it is surprisingly inconsistent for such a big name wine. Two, it cost $22. That is about $5 more than it is worth.

Evolution costs $15, is surprisingly consistent, and has all the good things conundrum has. Give them both a try, and let me know which you think is better. I can't decide, but I drink about twice as much Evolution as Conundrum.

-PMo

Fun in El Paso

Fun Stuff:

So I was in El Paso, visiting family, over the weekend. That is the explanation for no posts. I had a great time. I got to see my wife’s entire family, hang out, a lot, with brother-in-law, and his wife, ran a couple miles with my niece, and visited New Mexico. We went to New Mexico for a wine festival. If you know me at all, you know I can’t pass up a wine festival.

The second bit of “fun stuff” is that we are in fact leaving the country on May 13 as originally planned. Off to France with us. Yeah! No visas, but we are going anyway.

Wine Stuff:

Right now I am drinking Lucky number 9. If you know what that is, you also know it is yummy. I will talk about that in a later post.

As I said, I went to a wine festival in New Mexico over the weekend. WOW! It was hot. We had a great time anyway. The concept of the festival was that you pay $10 to get in, you get a glass and a wristband with six pull tabs. These six tabs get you six tastes of wine. You can also buy wine by the glass or bottle. So the plan was to get six tastes of wine, then buy a glass or two of the best stuff. Simple.

I got in one of the many lines and apparently I am a good line picker. I asked for a taste of Viognier, and I got a near-full glass of the stuff! That happened FOUR times with four different “tastes”. TWICE my little pull-tabs were left intact. I left the festival, drunk, and with one tab still on my wrist. I think I had about eight glasses of wine total. I did buy one.

I am not a big fan of Chardonnay, but I had a good one at the La Vina wine festival. They produce two different Chardonnays, but in my opinion, the Desert Flower is the only one worthwhile. What I remember about it is that it was very fruity, and that is not common among Chard that has character. It is an easy grape to produce, but it is hard to grow with real flavor. Wine makers tend to use a lot of wood on crappy grapes to make something interesting. There goes a digression, sorry. This wine was made with well-grown fruit. That is not to say it was not well treated with wood. I think it had the perfect balance between fruit and oak. With all of that said, I hope you can try it, but I don’t know where to get it… Aside from the vineyard.

-PMo