Various from Portugal & France

Portugal

Adegga Wine Market on Saturday 1st December 2018 – a date for your diary

This year the winter Adegga Wine Market has a new venue at Armazém 16, Marvila, Lisboa with 70 Produtores Adegga, 500 Vinhos, 5 Chefs, 1 Sala Premium (Premium Room). Scenes from the 2015 Wine Market in Lisbon

There will be a special 'Rising Stars' section with Álvaro Martinho (Douro), Arribas Wine Company (Trás-os-Montes), Herdade da Anta da Cima (Alentejo), Portugal Boutique Winery (Douro), Rosa da Mata (Dão), Titan of Douro (Douro) already confirmed.

It will be interesting to see how the empty space above will be transformed for the Wine Market. If you happen to be in Lisbon on Saturday 1st December then a few hours spent at the Wine Market is highly recommended – a brilliant opportunity to meet some of Portugal's most interesting wine producers, taste their wines and then buy at a discounted price.

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Lisbon is booming – a week last Sunday morning we travelled back into Lisbon where we had again had a great meal at Terroso and the streets were mobbed at 1.15 am with traffic jams – true it was the weekend before the Web Summit ...... but even so. Sadly Terroso is now closed on Sundays and Mondays, so long Sunday lunches are now out, so will just have to have long Saturday lunches or even long Tuesday lunches instead.

It is more than a full-time job trying to keep up with all the new bars and restaurant openings in Central Lisbon. During our brief Lisbon visit we did try one new restaurant – Picamiolos, where the influence is very much from the Alentejo. We were very impressed.

There were some very creative dishes like the above very crispy rabbit chops – so crispy that you eat the bone and all.

Acorda is very much a traditional Portuguese recipe – a recipe based on bread and including fish or shellfish often prawns or monkfish. Acorda is a little like a bread porridge. Although well done acorda can be very good, here at Picamiolos the approach was decidedly different. Their acorda of guinea fowl was more akin to a bread and butter pudding without the sweetness – the bread lightly toasted. With this we drank the fascinating and lightly spicy 2013 Mayor from José da Sousa, which is vinified in ceramic amphora that has a very long tradition in the Alentejo dating back to Roman times.

I do hope that Lisbon will ride the boom and continue to offer quality food and drink at a reasonable price wherever you go – one of the big reasons for the the city's current popularity. If it doesn't then there is always a danger that boom can turn rapidly to bust.

France

Make Mine a Pouilly-Fumé!

On Friday night we opened the stunning 2014 Barre à Mine, Blanc Fumé de Pouilly from Michel Redde – a combination of lovely rich texture citric fruits edging towards more exotic fruits matching by great clean mineral length. Drinking brilliantly now but clearly capable of aging much longer.

Barre à Mine comes from a special relatively recently created vineyard planted in very flinty ground just off the D4 close to La Roche in the northern end of the Pouilly-Fumé appellation. The Reddes cleared some huge boulders (see below) from ground around an old quarry – hence the name.

 

Vines struggling through pure flint....

France to reduce speed limit on single carriageway roads

From The Guardian 10.1.2018

From July 1st 2018 the speed limit on France's single carriageway roads will be reduced from 90 kmh (56 mph) to 80 kmh (50 mph). This is an attempt to reduce the recent rise in the number of road deaths.  In the UK the limit is 60 mph on single carriageway roads.

3500 people lost their lives on French roads in 2016. 55% of these on single cariageway roads. In around a third of these accidents excessive speeding was involved.  

Up to 2013 ( 3,268 killed) the number of deaths on French roads had been falling but in 2014 they started to rise again. 

The use of mobile phones while driving is to be targeted. 

It remains to be seen how effective this speed limit reduction will be. Much will depend on how rigorously it be enforced.

Read the rest of the article here.  

Château de Chenonceau – patrimoine mondial

 

Views of Château de Chenonceau

I have to say that I had assumed that the Château de Chenonceau was covered by the the UNESCO World Heritage zone and was part of the heritage site established in 2000 and running from Sully-sur-Loire to Challones on the western edge of Anjou. 

It appears that I was mistaken as Chenonceau being on the River Cher wasn't included. A gross error as IMHO Chenonceau is the loveliest of all of the Loire châteaux. 

I am grateful to Hervé, one of my colleagues on Les Cinq du Vin, for having brought this change to my attention. 

'Lors de sa 41e session qui se tient à Cracovie, le comité du patrimoine mondial de l'Humanité a élargi le périmètre classé du Val de Loire pour y intégrer l'emblématique château des Dames qui enjambe le Cher.

Depuis l'an 2000, les paysages culturels du Val de Loire sont inscrits au patrimoine mondial de l'Humanité sur près de 280 km entre Sully-sur-Loire dans le Loiret et Chalonnes en Anjou. Jusqu'à présent, ce classement établi par l'Unesco englobait de très nombreux sites remarquables de la Touraine, à l'exception toutefois du château de Chenonceau situé légèrement en retrait sur le Cher. Aujourd'hui, cette lacune regrettable est réparée. Dimanche, les instances internationales de l'Unesco ont en effet décidé d'élargir le périmètre classé pour y intégrer le célèbre Château des Dames, joyau de la Renaissance en Val de Loire qui accueille chaque année près de 900.000 visiteurs dont 40 % d'étrangers.'

Parkinson's ride: les étapes, the stages: Monday 12th - Friday 16th June 2017

From one famous cru to another: Pauillac to La Livinière 
Our challenge is to cycle from Pauillac, close to the Atlantic coast, to La Livinière in the Minervois, not very far from Mediterranean – a distance of roughly 500 km, just over 300 miles!

Pauillac is the home of some of the most famous Bordeaux vineyards - Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Latour, Château Mouton Rothschild. Our destination is La Livinière where we will, hopefully, catch the Boulevard Napoléon Fête du Vin, celebrating the wine of Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, co-founders and co-owners of London’s St John Restaurant. The wine is made from their vineyards high up in the hills of the Minervois.

It was at last year’s wonderful Fete du Vin at La Livinière that we came up with the idea of doing a charity ride and Fergus, who has had Parkinson’s since 1998, was the inspiration for selecting Parkinson’s UK as our chosen charity. Fergus is a well-known and highly regarded British chef and author of The Whole Beast: Nose to tail eating, which explains his philosophy and provides some of his innovative recipes that make use of all parts of the animal.

Fergus Henderson 

 

Les étages/ the stages
Starting/finishing dates:
Monday 12^th June to Friday 16^th June

Monday 12^th June
Stage 1: Pauillac to Sauternes 93.2 kilometres 64 miles (Approx 5h)
Confirmed participants: Carole and Jim
Support: Lynda Maple
Official start: D2 by Château Lafite-Rothschild

Tuesday 13^th June
Stage 2: Sauternes to Agen 96 kilometres – 60 miles (Approx 5h)
Confirmed participants: Carole and Jim
Support: Lynda  
  Wednesday 14^th June
Stage 3: Agen to Villaudric 94.2 kms  – 59 miles (Approx 5h)
Confirmed participants: Carole, Max Poynter Hall and Jim
Support: Lynda  
 Thursday 15^th June
Stage 4: Villaudric to Castelnaudary 112 kms  – 70 miles (Approx 5h)
Confirmed participants: Carole and Jim 
Support: Lynda  
 Friday 16^th June
Stage 5a: Castelnaudary to Bram: 17kms (1 hour)
Confirmed participants: Carole and Jim
Support: Lynda  
We would do the short ride from Castelnaudry to Bram to meet up with anyone, who fancies the final 32 kilometre stage to La Lavinière.

Stage 5b:  Bram to La Livinière 51 kms  – 32 miles (Approx 3h)
The final short leg to La Livinière
Confirmed participants: Carole and Jim
Possible participants: Kitty Cooper  + others we hope

Your opportunity to donate to help fight Parkinson's:

(Virgin Giving site – every donation makes a difference!
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/ParkinsonsPedalers)

Wine Scholar Guild – Wine Immersion Study Trips in France, Italy and Spain

Press release from Wine Scholar Guild regarding 2017 study trips: 

'Wine Scholar Guild, formerly French Wine Society, has announced its 2017 schedule of week-long study trips.

Each trip offers an intensive, professional-level education in the wine region coupled with certification through the WSG’s industry-endorsed Master-Level program for the region upon successfully completing the final exam. The Wine Scholar Guild is the only organization to offer this dual-faceted, complete wine education/wine tour program. The trips are led by internationally-renowned experts such as Andrew Jefford, Essi Avellan MW, Gerard Basset MW, MS, Jane Hunt MW, Kerin O’Keefe and Sarah Jane Evans MW.

Julien Camus, WSG President, explains “After five years of successfully offering unique study trips to some of the top wine regions in France and expanding in 2016 our in-depth study programs to include the wines of Italy, the Wine Scholar Guild is expanding its destinations to include Tuscany, Piedmont and Rioja. These trips give participants an insider immersion in the regions, their wines and culture in a way that text books cannot provide. Trips scheduled for 2017 are selling quickly, with many repeat registrations from previous guests… a sign that the Wine Scholar Guild is truly delivering a unique wine tour experience.”

The trips include extensive high-caliber wine tastings at some of the best estates of each region. They are nearly all-inclusive, including the WSG Master-Level course, full comfort hotels, gourmet meals with great wines, all winery tours and tastings, and deluxe ground transportation. Prices range from US$3570 to $4290 per person, double occupancy, and each trip is limited to just 18 guests (15 for Burgundy, Piedmont and Jura).

The 2017 dates are:

• May 14-19, 2017: Tuscany with Jane Hunt MW
• May 21-26, 2017: Piedmont with Kerin O’Keefe
• May 28- June 2, 2017 : Burgundy with Andrew Jefford
• June 5-10, 2017: Alsace with Andrew Jefford
• September 24-29, 2017: Rioja with Sarah Jane Evans MW
• October 1-6, 2017: Bordeaux with Gerard Basset MW, MS
• October 10-14, 2017: Champagne with Essi Avellan MW
• October 15-19, 2017 : Jura with Wink Lorch
• October 22-27, 2017 : Loire with Pascaline Lepeltier, MS

The trips are organized and operated by Terroir Wine Services, wine professionals with more than 15 years of experience putting together extraordinary wine trips in Europe.

For more information, contact jcamus@winescholarguild.org, or call 1-202-640-5466. Full information is also available on the Wine Scholar Guild web site at:

https://www.winescholarguild.org/french-wine-immersion-study-trips-overview/french-wine-tours.html'

France and Lebanon: memories of happier times

 

Chavignol and Sancerre in December 

Following the deadly ISIS attacks in Beirut and then in Paris here are a few photos that bring back happier memories:   

 Smoke across the landscape around Chavignol

 Répas des rétraites: Epeigné-les-Bois

 Finishing a randonnée@Epeigné-les-Bois

 Epeigné-les-Bois: band @the inauguration of Le Lézard Vert

(above and below)

 June: Laurent Herlin & Xavier Courant @Café de la Promenade

 The extraordinary temple of Baalbek: Lebanon 

(above and below)

Beirut: newly married couple @Lebanese wedding

My thoughts are in France today

Last night I followed the shootings in Paris in horror and disbelief – the daily violence in Syria and other parts of the Middle East coming to a major European capital. It would seem that the attacks were carefully co-ordinated with the intention of killing indiscriminately as many people as possible. 129 is latest total with at least 99 critically injured.  

My thoughts are with the families of those killed, the injured and with the French people. I am relieved that many friends have marked themselves as safe on Facebook. 

Although it is too early to know who the attackers were, it does appear likely that they are linked with Islamist groups in the Middle East. François Hollande has now blamed the Islamic State.

If these murders spread further division in France then the attackers will have won. Already on Twitter attacks on Muslims have intensified, despite the attacks being widely condemned by the Muslim world. Furthermore, given the indiscriminate shooting, it is well possible that there are Muslims amongst the the dead and wounded.

This is a brutal lesson that The West has to help to bring peace to Syria and other parts of the Middle East and be careful not to make things worse. 

 

Are French on-line wine retailers up to regulation speed?

Last week I looked at some UK on-line wine retailers to see who had changed their Terms & Conditions to come into line with the new pan-EU regulations covering distance selling. It was a mixed picture.  

Today on Les 5 du Vin are the results of a similar exercise looking at 25 on-line retailers in France. Of these 10 offer the correct 14 days cancellation period after delivery, while 15 are still only offering 7 days, so do not conform with the current legislation. Those not conforming include some of the best known on-line wine companies such as idealwine, Millésima, Nicolas and Savour Club.  

Driving to France? – don't forget your alcohol test kit!

 

A dual kit alcohol test as approved by French government 

A quick reminder that if you are driving in France it is now obligatory to carry at least two unused alcohol test units or a machine. These testers need to be approved by the French government to satisify French police. This new law came into force on 1st July, although no fines for not carrying an alcohol test will be levied until 1st November. 

I'm not clear whether there is a requirement that the driver tests themselves after drinking and before taking the wheel. If this is the case then for some frequent purchases of alco-tests will be required to make sure one always has at least two unused in the car at any one time. What an bonanza for the makers! 

I bought the pack of two featured here today from Halfords for £5.99. I didn't inquire about buying a machine but the only one they had cost £59.99 and wasn't approved by the French government because it was set up to test to the UK legal limit which is 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, whereas in France it is 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.      

Restaurants and wine in France

Poor glass on left, good glass on right

David Cobbold has a good post on Les 5 du Vin about wine in restaurants in France. He gives an example of exemplary wine choice and service but also castigates a large number of establishments for the poor way that they treat wine. 

In tomorrow's post on Les 5 du Vin I will be following this up with some examples of restaurants where wine is valued as well as citing some woeful and slovenly practices that need to be changed. 

France: The future of wine on the internet?

The legal threat from French courts to the mention of wine on the internet:

www.le-vin-sur-internet.fr/