Hi Everyone and Happy Holidays! Be sure to check out both new posts… we’ve had some free time to sit and now we both have a post before we take off on our trip to Germany and Denmark.

Linn and I have been trying to make the most of our Christmas break here in France. He finished classes on Friday and I had my final exam the Monday before, we’ve been celebrating ever since. We met up with Bruno and Rachel Friday evening at our favorite hang out the “beer shop,” for yummy beer and quality conversation. One round later we had planned our first day of vacation. The next day the four of us took a train to Carcassonne an hour and twenty- minute train ride from Montpellier. 

We descended from the train at 10am and began our walk through the “lower city.” They had a huge farmers market happening with fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, and flowers. It stretched throughout many city blocks and around the main square. We picked up some things for a picnic lunch and made our way to the crown jewel of Carcassonne. Atop the hill above the “lower city” is the “old city” a double- walled medieval city that still stands and is inhabited to this day. Of course this is a large tourist area so there are lots of souvenir stores, local specialty retailers and restaurants. One of the tourist spots “La Cure Gourmande” is a gourmet sweet shop. They had 20 different varieties of biscuits or cookies. They had a long wall of different types of artisanal caramels and a huge table of different flavors of nougat. Nougat seems to be one of the sweets of choice here in the South. The best thing about this shop was how beautiful it was. Their packaging was all different bags or tins with colorful, vintage looking prints. Apparently, the company started in the 80’s and is not unique to Carcassonne but everything was very pretty and looked like a revitalized historic gem.

The coolest thing about this “Old City” was the juxtaposition of old and new. Walking out of modern shops where I had just used my credit card and towering over me is this 1,000 year- old structure. It made me realize how lucky I am to be here and to be witnessing one of the best examples of a medieval city in all of Europe and the best in Southern France. Of course there have been lots of renovations and the buildings are not original so it is impossible to feel what it was like originally but it was still amazing to see the old architecture and to pretend what it may have been like. The exterior ring walls and towers are original dating from the 11^th century. However, all of the interior buildings were built much later, probably from the 1800’s when a lot of restoration and renovation took place. Today approximately 120 people live and work in this ancient city.  If ever passing through Carcassonne, one must stop, you. After an amusing walk back through the city streets we made it back to the train station. The four of us took the same train to Narbonne where they got off to meet up with his family for the Holidays and where we switched trains to get back to Montpellier. Carcassonne was our second little day trip out of Montpellier and it was wonderful. The four of us had a great day touring this new city.

After a couple days in Montpellier with not much to do but learn French we decided to catch a train to Nimes. Only a forty- minute ride from Montpellier but totally worth a day trip! Nimes is home to several important pieces of architecture still standing or partially standing to this day. Their claim to fame is the invention of denim. I believe in the 1700s they had invented this very durable fabric originally used for ships sails. The called the cloth of Nimes which translates to tissu de Nimes, de Nimes… deNimes… denim! I didn’t see much boasting that invention but I’d read about it online several times. The architectural marvels: They have an Arena that dates from the end of the 1^st century. It is similar to the Coliseum in Rome though not as large and has been is frequently used to this day and thus frequently repaired. It was interesting from the outside and from recent photographs it looks like a modern concert venue inside. They’ve installed a ring of bleacher seating and it is still used to this day for concerts and bull fights.

Another important building is the Maison Carrée one of the best preserved Roman temples anywhere in the former territory of the Roman Empire. It was built early in the first century and has been used as many different things until becoming a museum in 1823. Most importantly it became a church in the 4^th century which prevented it from being demolished when many former Roman temples had been. Today it is a museum that offers it’s windowless walls to rotating exhibits and apparently there is no original decoration on the interior. We didn’t go in but I’ve read all about it in school and it was very cool to see, even if one whole side was covered with scaffolding and a billboard for the current exhibit.

We then found our way to the Fountain Gardens or Les Jardins de la Fountaine that I’d read about online. The garden was developed in the 17^th century and was built to showcase roman ruins and to incorporate the natural spring and help get water to more of the city. One partial building remains on the property from the Augusteum or the sanctuary for the emperors and their families. The Temple of Diane was probably used for celebrations for the families.  The park is beautiful and well maintained. The fountain is over a natural spring and is pretty powerful. The connecting canals were originally designed to get water to more of the city from the spring. Today they are partially functional, partly aesthetic. The gardens of mostly trees and greenery this time of year climbs the large hill behind the fountain to the oldest and highest point of the city. At the top of the hill sits Le Tour Magne, which dates from the first century BC. Today it only has two of three levels and only one half of one archway of an arcade that once supported a ramp. Old, old, old and one could walk right up to it and kiss it if they so pleased.

Nimes was a great city and also one to visit if you’re ever cruising the South of France. Now we’re off to Germany for three days and Denmark for five, we’ll be meeting up with Carolyn and Lars for the Denmark portion, we’ll be seeking great German beer during the Germany portion. We wish you all a very safe and Happy New Year!

 

 

For the Foodies...

We’ve had several requests for a more detailed post about the food and wines here. Just to help break it up a bit I’ll cover food in this post and wine and beer in the next one. The photos in the post were taken inside a market in Nimes and is typical of other markets in the area. 

Surprisingly the food has been something of a mixed bag. Since we’re not on vacation we’re not eating at restaurants very often so I can’t say I’ve had any amazing French meals and I think that I expected it to be somewhat different. There is the internationalized ‘French’ food that we tend to get at home as well as all over France- in that sense it is also the nationalized French food. We did have one meal, sort of in that vein that was pretty good, I had Coq au Vin and Allison had a seafood dish with capers and a citrus sauce on two different fish all of which was well done. The tragedy of the internationalized French cuisine is that it drowns out more of the local foods. The cassoulet, which I thought would be all over the place I haven’t seen at all in Montpellier- though we saw it at Carcassonne. Most of the restaurants have menus at varying prices from twelve to thirty Euros, which generally offer an entrée (appetizer) and a main dish or a main dish and a dessert. Most restaurants, brasseries, even cafes offer this type of pricing.

There is good diversity among the non-French restaurants. There is heavy middle- eastern influence as there are large populations from North Africa and the fertile crescent as well as a few Turks. Due to this influence there are very good kebabs and pastries that are more Middle Eastern rather than French.  Italian foods, especially pizzas are quite common, very affordable and while they of course vary we have had several pizzas that were really good. There are some Asian restaurants- a Vietnamese place that looks interesting, several Chinese places, and more than a few sushi restaurants. We went for sushi last week with friends after Allison and Rachel had finished their final exam in French. The flavors were certainly those of sushi and while it was far from life changing, it was nice to have.

There is a fair amount pick up foods- sandwiches, the tielles that we had in Sete (fish and mussel calzone type things) kebabs, quiches, and pizza. They are all generally fresh, cheap and quite good. Those are more often made at bakeries and are purchased to-go. The bread is also excellent. There is the ubiquitous baguette, which can be great or terrible but there is also a great deal of variety in styles outside of that- more ball shaped loaves, breads with different grains mixed in, flaxseed, called linseed here, rye, and others. Bread in general is cheap- a baguette no matter the quality range from 50-80 cents and some can be found for as low as 25 cents, which seems crazy. The more specialty breads are either sold by the piece or more commonly by the kilo. Those all range depending on the ingredients but for a whole wheat “specialty loaf” we don’t spend more that 2 Euros 50. We’ve found variety and quality to be quite high and on any given day we have we have five bakeries to choose from, all within a five- minute walk from our building.  One of the nearest bakeries has a rotisserie wagon conveniently parked next to it. We’ve bought rotisserie chickens for both Thanksgiving and Christmas but she is there every day and does a pretty brisk trade. The meat is great and with our limited meat roasting abilities it is very nice to have!

So while the restaurant report is certainly mixed I have to say that there is absolutely no question why France is so famous for good food. The fresh ingredients are amazing. The small market that we have just down the street on Saturday mornings has a tremendous variety of the freshest fruits, vegetables, meats, breads, and cheese. They also have a huge variety of olives, oils, salamis, dried hams (prosciutto), preserved fruits, spices, honeys, and nearly every other ingredient you can think of. It is all incredibly inexpensive and usually very high quality. Some things are imported but by and large everything is local or at least regional.

The only thing that costs much money (by American standards) is fresh meat. The meat tends to be quite fresh, and high quality but it is quite a bit more expensive which I think figures in to both why there are so many parts of animals that are used here that aren’t popular in the US (blood, organ meats, tongue etc.) and also why portions of meat that people eat tend to be smaller. Sausages like salami are pretty good also with many different sorts of flavors- crusted with black pepper, herbs d’provence, truffles, olives and the list goes on. There are also different sorts of meat- guinea fowl, and other smaller birds- I’ve seen quail, and pheasant also once in the cafeteria at school they served ostrich. There’s plenty of rabbit available too.

The cheeses are very good. The generic camembert or brie style cheeses are certainly all over but there are very good fresh sheep and goat cheeses that are fairly typical of the milk that they come from but not really funky from long ageing. There are a few harder cheeses Comte, some goudas, some harder Basque cheeses which are more like the Spanish manchego, Roquefort is widely available as are a few other bleus, St. Marcelain (the cheese that normally comes in a small ceramic ramekin) and a number of other soft cheeses like that are available in packs of five all wrapped up like lifesavers. I’ve liked the hard cheese from Laguiole- where the corkscrews and knives come from, which has a granular or crystalline texture when aged, similar to aged gouda or parmesan. Cheeses are generally quite affordable and where shops in the States have storebrands for a few cheeses: shredded parmesan, cheddar, jack cheeses and maybe pepper-jack, the stores in France are much less fortunate they have maybe 20 or 30 different cheeses of varying appellations just to cover the house brand (“Safeway Select” sort of thing) along with the higher end examples from many places. Much like the wines the cheeses are celebrated for their geographic diversity so even though the cheeses come from similar if not exactly the same tradition it is regarded as very different which allows the region to stand out with a unique product. The French do love milk products, there are aisles of cheeses, yogurts, desserts, ice creams, crème fraiche, kefirs, and any other milk product you can think of. The milk on the other hand is almost all pasteurized for long- term storage and sold off the dry goods shelf in tetra paks and plastic bottles- sort of strange for a place that celebrates cheeses made from unpasteurized milk. 

With the different vegetables, like leeks, great carrots, different potatoes and the like we’ve made many more soups than we ever had made before. It has worked out well to not know what to do with something and just throwing it in some soup to see what it is like. We’ve cooked a lot more with leek- something that never really occurred to me to buy at home. The fresh salad greens are very good as well.

Overall we have about the same diversity at home but the quality seems very high and priced very well. The discount store, Lidl, up the hill has pretty good produce and while the thought of buying much produce at Grocery Outlet or Trader Joe’s our two most popular discount retailers sounds a little sketchy, here the number of choices are fewer but the quality is pretty high.

One noticeable difference is the onion. French onions are more pungent- also are a packaged in bulk, often still with a good coat of dirt. They are also smaller, in general, than the onions at home. I suppose that might suggest something about the criteria by which onions are grown and marketed in the US. I feel that is true of many of the vegetables and fruits here. Another good example is apples, they tend to be smaller, have a bit more scab or sunburn but they taste great… the opposite of an all-American red delicious which is mostly shine and flawless skin and then mono-dimensional flavor-wise with mealy flesh.  Of course the more interesting varieties: gala, braeburn, cameo are great at home too but still larger and less rustic looking.

We do most of our shopping at either one of the big Hypermarkets like Casino (unfortunately there aren’t any slot machines) or Carrefour for wine, some vegetables, and more specialized groceries that Lidl doesn’t have. We buy the more usual stuff, milk, some cheeses, meat and basic spaghetti sauce, beans etc at Lidl the funky discount joint that is just up the street from us.  We get bread at whichever of the bakeries is on our way.

The different sorts of shops are interesting. Lidl and other hard discounters are pretty popular. They have larger lots of stuff but they have things produced for them they’re not just buying end runs of things so you can often get the same product there every time. There are small neighborhood markets- epiceries which can have high-end specialty stock- for example the high end place near us has expensive craft chocolate, a small but high end wine selection, and then they do a brisk business in foie gras this time of year.  Another place just down the street is called an epicerie also but it is much more of a convenience store. Slightly larger are the super markets which tend to be mostly food, larger than epiceries and have a pretty wide selection of stuff. Then the Hypermarkets are more like a Fred Meyer but with a much better grocery department and they are normally a good deal larger. These places tend to have big deli departments well stocked with cheeses and meats. Most have good wine departments as well as large produce departments. There are also electronics, house-wares, clothes and appliances, so pretty much anything you might need is there. 

There are also always specialists. Fruit and vegetable shops, cheeses shops, butchers, wine shops and the like. We buy from these types occasionally mostly for one or two things out of convenience or if we’re looking for something particular that only a specialty shop might have. As romantic as it sounds to go to the butcher, the fruit stand, the general store for groceries it just isn’t in our budget as this type of shopping is generally more expensive. 

Our visit to Sete

This post is mostly comprised of pictures in an attempt to visually explain the city of Sete. Linn, Rachel, Bruno and I went for the day to this neighboring city, the city were Bruno went to high school.  We took the train from Montpellier, very convenient as it only takes 20 minutes. A short walk from the train station and we were in the heart of Sete. The “down-town” runs along a large canal, one of many throughout the city. The homes, businesses and Bruno’s high school climb the incline of the hill overlooking the Mediterranean ocean. The population is largely Italian and because of the canals Sete is often referred to as the “Little Venice of France.”

We bought the necessary items for a picnic and walked along the canal to the ocean. The four of us feasted a local specialty the “Tielle.” It is a small pie filled with a spicy tomato sauce and bits of fish or octopus. Cooked throughout the day they were warm, a little spicy, not too fishy and just a little bit of grease from the sauce; they were delicious! We also tried the “Chausson aux Moules” which is smaller, made of the same pie- like crust and filled with spicy tomato sauce and mussels. Made of mostly the same ingredients we didn’t expect much of a difference but Linn and I weren’t big fans of the baked- in mussel flavor. We also bought the typical picnic food of baguettes and wine. The weather was beautiful and other than a little wind it was a glorious lunch.

After our meal we walked along the boardwalk overlooking the ocean, admiring our new surroundings. We stopped for drinks at a lazy neighborhood bar then continued our walking tour of the city. Along a residential street we talked, laughed and took a lot of great photos.  The road climbs the hill overlooking the ocean and ends at the giant cemetery. We walked through rows and rows of beautifully adorned graves. Fresh flowers at most, ceramic or silk flowers at others. There were a lot of people in the cemetery some were visiting specific graves others touring as we were.

We made our way back to the train station slowly meandering through the streets of homes, past Bruno’s school, over and along the canals. We were back to Montpellier in good time and promised ourselves we would take more day trips like this.

 

 

Allow me to fulfill my promise...

Allow me to fulfill my promise. The shopping in Montpellier is pretty good but just because it’s in France doesn’t mean it’s anything like Paris. I have done a lot of window-shopping. I’ve cruised the streets looking for nothing and finding everything and while I haven’t purchased much, I’ve seen quite a bit of what the city has to offer. The “Centre-Ville” is where all of the shops are located as it is the commercial center of the city. In one corner there is a small (by US standards) indoor mall with Galeries Lafayette as the anchor department store. The shops in the mall carry everything from shoes to electronics to home furnishings much like every mall in the states. Then there are hundreds of boutiques sprinkled throughout the city streets. Whether you are looking to invest in a timeless piece by a French aetelier or just want an inexpensive, mass-produced accessory the best places to look are in the many boutiques. They are interwoven with the great restaurants, cafes and apartments along the twisted and tangled cobbled streets. Its quite entertaining just to walk the streets and see where you end up. 

For clothing there are many too many options. Galeries Lafayette, a scaled back version of the amazing couture- carrying monolith in Paris, has mens, womens and childrens apparel, shoes and accessories from all of the major French brands. They also carry some of the top ranking Italian and American designers. In the mall there is Zara (a huge international brand) very popular in Montpellier. It is a two- floor store and is very fashionable and fairly inexpensive, it reminds me of H&M. There is also a C&A, Sephora, Gap, Camarieu, Pimkie and more. The boutiques through out town are a total mix of both high and low- end brands though none are the couture houses like Chanel, Gucci etc.

Part of shopping is noticing what people are wearing this season. What they wear to school, to work and around town. I’ve been paying close attention to all of the men’s and women’s fashions as we are so close to both Paris and Milan the fashion capitols of the world. I have found it interesting how closely people follow the trends and how similarly people dress. There are also more clearly drawn lines when it comes to age- appropriate clothing. Right now, the ladies from teens to women in their 30’s are wearing the skinny jeans which are either tucked into their tall, riding boots, worn with a ballet flat or a tall heel.  They all have some sort of take on the tweed/ wool coat with huge buttons, most are black or gray with the occasional bright red one.  Then everyone wears a scarf, especially this time of year. It is getting colder now and their scarves have transformed from delicate silk splashes of color to functional chunky wool knit ones over night.  It seems most women wear neutral tones in an attempt to blend in. Curious, I asked a local about the style he said that the women tend to dress fashionable but in more muted colors so as not to offend people. I didn’t quite understand at first but after observing for the past three weeks it seems true. Most shoes are black or gray if they’re a color it is a muted one. Every woman wears nylons with their shoes that are a similar color. The coats and scarves are all beautiful but few are in bright colors. Traditionally fall fashion colors are more muted so I’ll be interested to see what the spring brings.

For shoes and handbags there are also many, many options. I have found it interesting the differences in price ranges. There are lots of little “import shops” that don’t really have a name for their shop and all the shoes boxes are stacked and you can find a pair of boots for 25 euro. While fashion- forward the quality of product from these stores is poor. Then there are the shops in the mall and some boutiques where prices range from 60-160 euro for a similar looking boot. Finally there are the larger boutiques where one could pay upwards of 500 euro for a gorgeous pair. The handbag availability seems to be the same. There are all price ranges available but the really cool ones are 400 euro. I arrived with a handbag in poor condition so I had been keeping my eyes open for one.  I didn’t like the selections available at 15 euro which were made of “pleather” and where either black or brown. Boring! I ended up finding one at a small shop on one of the streets, tucked away like a little treasure.  I’d been there with friends weeks ago and enjoyed the store so much that I returned just last week. Their shop is full of fun accessories for yourself and your home.  I even managed to tell the shop owner that I loved his store, in French!

One very important thing to note the stores here do not have sales. In the US our shops have sales or promotions every weekend and holiday, apparently it doesn’t happen here. There are sales once in January after the New Year then again in August. I have seen some stores with markdowns on some pieces but not everywhere and certainly not banners indicating HUGE MARKDOWNS like home.

There is some of what you ladies were looking for… I’m sure I’ll have more fashion and shopping gossip as the months pass. Oh and speaking of that gossip I finally saw Sex and the City the movie… I loved it! iTunes has been a very close friend to both Linn and I over the past couple months. Next on the blog pictures and info about our recent day trip out of Montpellier and in the spirit of the Magic School Bus books I’ll leave with a teaser!

Ta ta for now.

Hi everyone! Aujourd’ hui nous sommes le 1ere Novembre 2008. We left Seattle nearly two months ago and my how things have changed! We’ve been in our dorm room since the 12th of September and started classes the following Monday. Since then we’ve fallen in to a bit of a routine. The dream of living in the South of France has gradually turned into life on a planet. We have to go to the grocery store, the bank, the post office and the barber just like everyone else. However, we’ve had to do it all in a foreign language. Each day has been an adventure from asking people what time it is to being asked for directions on the street. Though challenging it is a truly wonderful experience. 

Our dorm room is working out quite well. There wasn’t anything left behind by previous tenants so we had to start from the beginning. We’ve made a few trips to IKEA for the basics we are so fortunate to have one nearby. We also made friends with a guy who was moving out and was getting rid of quite a few things. About a month ago I was sitting downstairs sending emails and this guy came up to me and asked, in French, if I had left clothes in the dryer. I looked at him blankly and said “Je ne comprends” which means I don’t understand. He then smiled and asked in is Mid-West accent “Where ya from?” I guess he knew I was American based on my three-word response to his question. After our exchange of I’m from- he’s from he said “you know- we’re moving out tomorrow, you and your boyfriend should come by and look through the stuff we’re leaving behind.” The next day Linn and I stopped by their studio to see if they had any useful things left. It turns out there was quite a bit. We are now proud owners of a code-free portable DVD player and a mountain bike, a “bialetti” coffee maker, a fruit bowl, clothes- hangers, a bunch of spices and tea. He wouldn’t accept any money from us only the promise that we’d do the same when we’re done using them. Everything we took has come in handy and we are very grateful to have met him.  

While shopping for the basics was fun, our room was still boring! I’ve started decorating with pictures and cards from home, keep them coming Gran and Katelyn! Linn received a poster of different grape varietals on his trip to Italy, that’s up too. We even have our first magnet for the mini-fridge, a birthday present from Jessica. Slowly but surely this place is turning into a little home.  

A routine we’ve developed to spend time with each other and in an attempt to save money. I have class Monday, Tuesday mornings, all day Thursday and Friday afternoons. This allows for me to do most of the grocery shopping, banking, residency paperwork and runs to the post office. Conveniently, it allows me time to practice my basic French while at these places of business. Linn has class every day from 9 to 5. After an hour or so of time on the Internet (we don’t have internet in our room so we have to go downstairs to access the Wi-Fi) we make dinner. We have been doing a lot of cooking at home (Pat, you would be proud) on our two-burner cook-top. Linn has enjoyed coming up with new one or two pot recipes, tonight is Beef-Vegetable soup. We’ve cooked a lot of pasta or rice with meat or fresh veggies. We’ve been buying fresh bread every other day and delicious cheeses each week. We’ve also found decent beer and wine to be relatively inexpensive at the grocery stores. Which is a major reason for even shopping at them. After all, with the twice-weekly farmers markets and the small corner fruit stands, bakeries and butchers there is really no need to go to a mega-market. We’ve found time for going out with friends some nights during the week or on the weekends. We’ve found a couple good bars with patient bartenders and decent prices. On weekends we do a little exploring by taking streets we haven’t taken or busses we haven’t ridden. We have gotten used to making time on Saturday to shop for Sunday and early in the week as most businesses are closed on Sundays. Which at first was an inconvenience and now is nice because we have Sundays free to do homework and don’t have the opportunity to do much. We have taken the busses around but since nothing is open all we can do is window- shop and make notes of where we want to return.  

Last weekend, when Linn was gone in Italy, I went with friends Christina and Rachel (the girls in the photo) to the 60th Annual Foire Internationale. This is a fair at the Exposition Halls in Montpellier. We had to bus out there and pay 6 Euro each to walk around booth after booth of amazing chamois, “beautiful” leather goods, miracle lotions and creams and massage chairs. I was very similar to the state fair expo halls back home. The other thing they had was booth after booth of wine tasting and food for sale. Crepe, sandwich, crepe, sandwich… then just when we thought we’d seen it all. There was a new type of sandwich we’d not seen before. There were demi-baguettes with sliced meat and melted cheese. I know this doesn’t sound different but the way they melted the cheese was genius! They had these ½ wheels of semi-hard cheese cradled by one arm of this contraption. The other arm hinged down over the cut side of the cheese and in this arm was a heating element. They hinge the arm open and scrape all of the freshly melted cheese into the sandwich as they’re ordered. Brilliant!!  (See below)

I mentioned each day being an adventure, some challenging, some not as much. We’ve had a few funny experiences due to the lack of knowledge of the language and culture. The first weekend we moved in we explored the building we lived in and noticed the Manager had on office on each floor, each door reading “Salle de Manger.” We thought that was good for the managers and good for us because we’d be able to find them whenever we needed. It turns out, after learning a few verbs including Manger which means To Eat and vocabulary words like Salle which means Room those aren’t Manager Offices they are “rooms for eating.” It turns out we can reserve them if we have a large group of people that want to eat together. Linn and I had a good laugh over that. Then, just today we went to Carrefour, a mega grocery- plus- everything store to get some groceries and shop around for a while. We have to take the bus to get out there and fortunately it’s the one right by our dorm. We saw one go by as we were leaving so we knew we had about 20 minutes until the next one base on the Saturday schedule. After standing in the gusting wind for 40 minutes it occurred to us that perhaps the day after Halloween “All Saints Day” is actually an observed holiday here. I had to ask the bus driver if it was a holiday and he looked at me like I was nuts and said simply “Oui!” We tucked our tails and got on the bus, who knew!  

Well that is enough for this post, I promise the next one from me will have info about the shopping and the clothes for all my girls that have inquired!

Linn's Class Trip to Italy

So, I’ve just returned from a 10-day trip to Italy with my classmates in the Vinfera program. The actual organization was pretty peculiar. This ‘intensive’ program was paid for by the European Union which evidently has money laying around for educational programs such as this as long as they meet certain criteria. The man who set up this program is a native Hungarian who is now living and teaching a viticulture and enology program in Sweden. This guy setup the program to include students from several countries: about 20 Swedes (lecturers and students) 21 of us from Montpellier, several Italian students (a Turk a few Argentines and several Italians) and about a dozen Hungarians. The group was far from cohesive to say the least.

The vinifera group left school the morning of Friday the 17^th and had to drive by bus from Montpellier to Torino (Turin) in Italy. We had one solid day in the Piedmont with lectures at the University of Torino (one of our partner schools) had some lectures on grape varietals native to the Piedmont and the different vineyard management methods and trellising techniques. In the afternoon we visited Fontana Fredda winery which is one of the largest wineries in the Piedmont. We visited the grounds, cellars and had a tasting of one of their Barolos and one of their Barbarescos.

Next day we were off to Valpiolcella where we had a great visit to Allegrini where we saw their grape drying building facilities for the Amarones that they make. We visited a couple of their vineyards and then went to the winery and tasted their Amarone and their top wine La Poja, which is from 100% Corvina. Both were excellent.

We spent only one night in Valpiolcella and then were off to Udine for six nights. We spent two days in lectures and visits to wineries and the experimental farm for the university they have commercial hemp, corn, kiwis, and loads of grapevines. The next two days we spent out at Vini Cooperative Rauscedo learning about rootstock identification, clonal selection, and grafting- I got to try my hand at omega grafting which is a method of grafting there two pieces of vine are fitted together by cutting the end of one piece of cane so as to fit it into a hole of the same shape as the other- which is in the shape of the greek omega. Seemed entertaining but since they annually produce between sixty and eighty million vines (one of many rootstocks paired with vinifera a variety) I think that it would get old quick.

Prior to our trip a classmate- Bisso- told me that there would be a big tasting of wines while we would be in Italy we were to be in Udine and the tasting was to be held in Torino… so he and I skipped class on Saturday and drove the 500 kilometers to Torino (the opposite side of the country) and he managed to swing a free ticket through his company in Moscow (he is the news editor and a journalist for a large Russian wine magazine) for me. We arrived a bit early for the tasting so we were able to briefly swing through the Slow Food fair (the slow food movement started in Italy and is still huge) and this show was enormous… easily the largest trade show ever… aisles of cheese, salumi, regional wines, eau d’vie, grappas, honey, beer and every other natural produit du terroir (as the French call it) we rushed through with an hour to go before the tasting and then moved on to the tasting.

The tasting was held by the Gambero Rosso which is one of the largest and most prestigious wine publications in Italy… tasting thousands of Italian wines each year and then rating them on a scale of one two or three glasses.  Only the best wines get three glasses and this tasting was a tasting of the wines that received that rating. The “Tre Bicchieri” is held every year in Torino in and old Fiat factory. Bisso and I hit Piedmont first trying dozens of wines that I’d never heard of or couldn’t afford, we then moved on to Tuscany which had been picked clean of the Tiganellos, Ornellaia, and Sassicaia but several great wines remained, moved on to the Amarones, and Montepulcianos, Montefalco Sagrantinos, and some southern Italian wines we finished off with the whites which were pretty picked over by then.  A few ‘best of show’ wines for me were from: Bruno Giacosa- Barolo and Barbaresco, Mario Marengo’s Barolo Brunate, Damilano’s Barolo Cannubi, Luciano Sandrone’s Cannubi Boschis, Aldo Conterno, Giacomo Conterno, and Vietti’s wines were all great. Tried two wines from Gaia and thought that they were pretty impenetrable but I suppose they ought to be. From Tuscany I liked wines from Tenuta Fontodi, Fattoria  Petrolo, and Castello de Fonterutoli’s Sepi. From the best of what’s left I tried I had a nice pinot nero from Stroblhof in Alto Adige, a very interesting wine from Nebbiolo grapes handled in an Amarone style of production: Valtellina Sforzato Albareda from Mamete Prevostini, and a great Primitivo made to taste just like a huge Zinfandel the Castello Monaci Artas. Had a nice sparkling wine from Ca Del Bosco “Franciacorta Cuvee Annamaria Clementi” which was killer. Tried a Gravner that was decent (though a bit warm) an amazing trebbiano from Valentini and an interesting wine from Feudi di San Gregario Greco Di Tufo Cutizzi.  We tasted about 80 wines in all and then headed out to spend the night in Barolo with a good friend of Bisso’s the owner/winemaker of Vietti Lucca and his wife Helena. We drove to Castiglione De Faletto where they live and had dinner in the restaurant next door which was great. We had Deutz 1996 Champagne, and two different wines from Giacomo Conterno the 2004 Cascina Francia and the 1995 Monfortina Riserva both were great. So we had a five course dinner with the three cellar workers, Lucca and his wife, Bisso and me. Afterwards we walked across the street to Lucca’s house (which is above the Vietti winery and below the town clock) and slept in their entertainment room/ guest bedroom. In the morning we had coffee with the kids and Helena and then went down to the winery- where Bisso showed me around (he worked harvest there in 07) and we tasted through all the wines fermenting in tank and then went down to the cellar and tasted through the 2006 and 2007 wines which were in the huge oak ovals or botta. Really amazing.

We took the long way back to Udine zigzagging across northern italy- visiting Lake Garda, Verona, and Bisso’s favorite fish restaurant that happed to be  on the way back. Another amazing meal (all manner of sealife prepared pretty much ay way you can imagine) we made it back at about midnight on Sunday to Udine- dropped off the car and were back to the hotel by about 1am. We sat through a marvelous and terribly relevant lecture on the uses of Sewage Sludge (Swedish lecturer) and another lecture on energy (Hungarian lecturer) and then headed off to Trieste for our flight to Paris and from Paris home to Montpellier. We’ve moved into our final section of our warm up section for the year- a preview of what we will see in the upcoming months. This final section in Food Science which is quite interesting so far… though there was a skull crushing lecture on fluid dynamics and another zinger on lipids this afternoon. All in all though it’s nice to be back in Montpellier.

     

J'ai vingt-six ans

Just a quick post to say thank you to everyone for all of the cards (see them behind me), emails and posts of Happy Birthday wishes. It was so nice to receive all of them. 

** The title for this post is French for "I am 26 years old" directly translated it means "I have twenty- six years" **

I had a great day and the weather managed to hold out for most of the day. Friends from my classes remembered it was my birthday from the day we had learned numbers, dates and holidays. They all wished me a Happy Birthday and one even had a gift for me. A japanese girl named Yuka who I befriended on our first day of classes gave me a gift of Japanese stationary and cute stickers for writing letters home. I was completely surprised to receive anything but it was fun to be able to open a gift on my birthday. 

Last night Linn cooked dinner for us and then we went out with a friend of mine and her boyfriend. Rachel was in my French class for the first week then was transfered to another group but we've managed to keep in touch. She is from Minnesota and is so much fun. Her boyfriend Bruno is from the greater Montpellier area, they met when he was studying in St. Paul. The four of us wound up at a British pub "The Shakespeare" for beers and it turned out to be trivia night. We stuck around for two rounds and then they had to leave as they had class early the next morning. 

Linn and I decided to go to a little wine bar we found last week "Esprit Vin." We had a great time there trying some different wines from the Languedoc region and eating delicious olives. I some how "befriended" George, an intoxicated 70-something at the bar and he and I proceeded to have a conversation in French. I looked over at Linn a couple times who looked as though he felt sorry for me but gave me the "you wanted to practice your French" eye. The man asked where we were from and after I told him he launched into his life story which started when he was 19 on a boat to New York. He told us several times than he made his way to San Francisco and loved it there. I understood some of what George said, asked him a few questions, I asked the bartender to translate a little and then I asked him to distract George :)

After our long walk back to the dorms Linn surprised me with a birthday dessert. He had purchased a chocolate mousse dessert topped with raspberry coulis and meringue from this great patisserie around the corner. I was so happy and it was the perfect end to a great day. I tried to set the timer on the camera to take a photo of both of us but couldn't figure it out so I'm toasting my tired self :)