Food and wine, so much more than mere fuel.

During my years living in France I picked up a great deal of information on the essentials of life. This being France, food and wine were high on the list of priorities.  I’d rashly agreed to help my French neighbour with his grape harvest and, having laboured since dawn under a burning sun, the break for lunch, promptly at noon, was very welcome.

Taking a seat on one of the long oak benches, I  noted an immaculate VW camper parked in the shade of a walnut tree.

The owners of the camper-van were two Englishmen in their early twenties, extremely camp, and excitable, but excellent company. The more outgoing admired Maureen’s blond hair. He told her he was a hairdresser by profession and offered to cut her hair, after lunch. This was an offer to be considered seriously. My wife dreads the inevitable visit to the hairdresser, where the inadequacy of her spoken French is severely tested, and welcomed this generous offer.

” It’s too hot now for long hair, could you cut it really short, like a boy?”

“Oh, you want to be a boy and I want to be a girl!” he screamed, collapsing into  fits of giggles.

Maureen’s new friends showed her round their van.  All sorts of gadgets and an excellent calor gas stove, the other young man being a chef.  The extensive cooking facilities in such a small space were at the expense of the sleeping area which consisted of one small bed, barely large enough for one person.

“Don’t you fall out?” Maureen asked, looking at the narrow bed with a concerned eye.

“Oh no, we’ve never had a cross word”, the hairdresser screamed as they fell about laughing until their sides must have ached.

Our hostess, Josette was placing vast quantities of food on the trestle tables, and I suddenly realised I was ravenously hungry. Numerous bottles of red wine were produced, together with a walnut aperitif made from green walnuts, red wine, and eau-de-vie, as well as earthenware jugs of water . Baskets of hot crusty bread were stacked down the centre of the tables, and we all reached across to break off chunks as required. A huge steaming bowl of Cream of asparagus soup stood on a side table, together with individual serving bowls. Down the centre of the tables there were dishes of hot button mushrooms in garlic, boiled potatoes topped with butter and parsley, aubergines studded with garlic, wafer-thin translucent slices of Bayonne ham, green beans, and an enormous salad with a simple vinaigrette dressing.

I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Aches and pains were forgotten as we set about the demolition of this food mountain. A dozen different conversations criss-crossed the tables, hands reached out for bread, for wine, and the farm dogs were beside themselves, begging shamelessly from each person in turn, ever hopeful of a share in the bounty.

Josette replenished as quickly as the food was eaten, each time tempting us with some new extravaganza.

The cheese board made its appearance, together with fresh supplies of red wine, and then it was time for dessert, greeted with roars of approval, as it is with this course that Josette is justifiably famous among her discerning neighbours. Prunes in white wine arrived first, then peaches in white wine, followed by pears in red wine, dishes chosen for their partnership with wine emphasising the value of the crop we were engaged in picking.   Heaped bowls of cream and crème fraîche completed the feast. We sipped strong black coffee and sought out shade, where the more canny of our number would enjoy an hour’s siesta before the signal to resume work was given.

“Come with me” said Marcel, taking me by the arm, “we will taste some wine”.  One of the more obvious benefits of living in France is the availability of fine wine at a price unheard of in England.  Supermarkets sell a great range and variety of wine, always with a large selection produced locally.  The choice is huge, but almost always confined to French wine.  This is understandable in a land so obsessed with the quality of its own products.  No one else understands or produces wine like the French.  This may or may not be the case, in view of the rise in recent years of excellent wine from such places as Australia, California and Chile, but don’t expect a Frenchman to hold any other point of view.  I buy some wine from the supermarket, but mostly I buy in bulk from Marcel.  We are fortunate in having a large cave, or wine store, in our house.  In times gone by, our house made both bread and wine for the village, as testified by an enormous bread oven and huge stone storage tanks, each holding many thousands of litres.

I know Marcel well enough by now to know that he needs very little encouragement to visit his beloved cave.  Before I came to live in France, I thought that red wine was made from dark grapes and white wine from white grapes.   The process is far too complicated for such simple rules of thumb.  White grapes are only made into white wine, that much is true, but black grapes also make white wine, as well as rosé and, of course, red wine.  The pulp and juice of dark grapes are colourless, and, as only the juice is used in the making of white wine, dark grapes are used as readily as white grapes.

Marcel has recently taken delivery of a new continuous winepress, and we made a detour on our way to the cave in order that I could admire the new acquisition, a gleaming miracle in cream and chrome. It works non-stop, accepting pulped grapes at one end and discharging sweet-smelling must at the other. The other machines were equally impressive. The first stage in preparing the grapes, known as faulage, involves splitting open the grapes without crushing the pips or stalks. The machine used for this process, le foulorr, is a terrifying beast, indeed. Two enclosed rollers rotate in opposing directions, flaying the skin from the grapes. The next stage is eraflage, removing the stalks, after which the grape pulp is pumped into the main press. After pressing, the resultant juice, or must, is left to stand for a period, allowing the cloudy suspension to settle. Marcel will syphon the clear juice away from the sediment when setting, or debourvage, has taken place. The clear juice will then be transferred to massive vats to ferment. There are many other stages before the wine can be bottled, the following year. The wine must be clarified and filtered, protected against infection by micro-organisms, and its progress checked at every stage. This is where the skills of the producer are most important, and where an acknowledged expert such as Marcel will hope to produce a wine which will excite the admiration of his customers, thus guaranteeing sales and a healthy profit for the year.

Marcel took over the farm on the retirement of his father about 15 years ago, and has drastically expanded his wine production, almost to the extent of excluding everything else.  His father, Marcel the elder, continues to work on the farm every day, but in recent years, has concentrated on his vegetable plot which extends over a mere half acre.  Winemaking was Marcel’s hobby and has become his passion.  Vineyards were planted in the area before Roman times and a winepress about 2000 years old is on display in the musée du vin at Tours.

As we walked to the cave I asked Marcel what grapes he was currently growing.  I thought this a simple enough question, but was somewhat disconcerted by the complications that the answer produced.   Many varieties of grapes are grown some for a specific purpose and others for blending.  The bulk of the vineyard is given over to Cabernet Franc, used as a single grape variety in nearby Chinon for their splendid red wine, but Marcel blends it with a small quantity of Cabernet Sauvignon for the making of Anjou Rouge.  The Sauvignon grape is easy to grow and tolerant of most climatic conditions, thicker skinned that the Cabernet Franc giving a rich dark flavour, an ideal wine for blending.  The Cabernet Franc grape is known as Le Breton after the representative of Cardinal Richelieu, the Abbé Breton who collected a range of grape-vines from the Bordeaux area to try in local vineyards and of these, the Cabernet Franc proved best suited to the soil and climate of this area.  It makes an earthy wine with flavours of blackcurrant and raspberries, and improves with age, keeping very well for five or six years.

The Chenin Blanc grape is known locally as Pineau de la Loire.   These grapes are picked very late in the year when they are over-ripe and after Pourriture Noble, noble rot has set in.  Marcel makes the wonderful Coteaux du Layon wine from over-ripe Chenin Blanc grapes. This grape needs maximum sunshine and in a hot dry year such as this the Coteaux du Layon will be superb.  Marcel advised me to put my order in now for next April or May when it will be ready to bottle. He actually makes Coteaux du Layon -Val de Loire appellation, as he is just outside the geographical area of the true Coteaux du Layon.  The same grapes are used and exactly the same methods of production.

The other two main grapes are the Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.  The Sauvignon Blanc is a difficult grape to grow, as it is very choosy about its soil and climate, for perfection everything has to be ideal.  Marcel has found a corner of his vineyard where the soil is ideal for this grape and the only other variable is the climate.  Too little sun will make a sour, sharp wine, but too much sun will make it over-blown and unsatisfactory.  This is the grape variety used in Sancerre and Pouilly-fumé wine.  At its best it is magnificent.  Marcel bottles it as simply Sauvignon, and it will rival his Chardonnay and Coteaux du Layon, “in a good year”.    Unfortunately, good years are rare with this grape.  “Why bother?” I asked.  Marcel shrugged his massive shoulders with the depth of expression that only a Frenchman can bring to the action, “perhaps this year will be right and then you will know the answer”.  Marcel’s other love affair is with Chardonnay, “easy to grow and easy to sell.  Everybody knows the name, even Les Anglais!”

I asked about Rosé wines and Marcel told me that he used to make a Rosé d’Anjou from a variety of grape known as Groslot, reasonably sweet and very popular a few years ago.  Fashions change and he now makes Cabernet d’Anjou from the Cabernet Franc grape.  This is not a problem as he has so much of this grape for making red wine.  Cabernet d’Anjou is stronger than Rosé d’Anjou but rather drier, more to the local taste and sells very well.  He also makes a Rosé de Loire, again a dry Rosé wine.  He explained the difference between them but it was not apparent to me.  They tasted so similar as to appear identical, the colour is identical and it appears a rather fine distinction.  I rationalised the inadequacy of my palate by supposing that as we had tasted directly from the tank, the difference would have been more apparent if the wine had been served chilled.

We arrived at the cave and Marcel slid open the large double doors which are normally kept closed to keep out sunlight and heat.  Closing the door behind us we entered an enormous stone-flagged cool room, almost chilly, with huge vats, some stainless steel, others an opaque plastic and several enormous old wooden casks, all having a spigot or tap and a marker showing the level of the liquid contents.  Many of the larger concerns store their wine underground, but Marcel’s cave is on the surface.  It is essential that the wine store remains cool and sterile.  It is the height of bad manners to wear strong perfume, aftershave, suncreams etc. in this holy of holies.  Smoking, even by the French, is not practised at a wine tasting, probably the only occasion when the ever-present cigarette will be extinguished.  A party of Americans had visited Marcel earlier in the year, with the intention of tasting and buying wine, only to be banished from the premises.  Marcel took great exception to the strong perfumes they were wearing and feared that his precious wine would be contaminated.  He was unable to understand how anyone could arrive at a wine tasting at 9.15a.m. after a breakfast of jam and croissant, and with a noticeable scent of peppermint toothpaste obliterating their taste buds.

An upturned oak barrel had a small silver tray with half a dozen wineglasses.  This region has its own wine glass and wine bottle.  Following the First World War a protracted debate took place, after which a wineglass unique to the Anjou region was chosen.  The Anjou wine bottle, more akin to a Beaujolais bottle than that of Bordeaux has an embossed crest below the neck with three Fleur-de-lys, a star and a crown, all surrounded by two branches of laurel.  Marcel was noticeably more serious as he told me he would teach me how to taste wine.  This is a ritual all of its own and is always treated with the utmost seriousness.  He has demonstrated the various stages to me in the past, but obviously felt I would benefit from a refresher course.

A partly filled glass of Anjou Rouge was my initiation.  I held up the glass by the stem, tilting it slightly and holding it against the background of the whitewashed walls, Marcel pointed out its colour, a rich dark ruby.  He cautioned me that if I should wish to buy wine from a less reliable supplier that I should insist on viewing the colour of the wine against a candle flame.  The definitive test of colour is by viewing from above where there can be no distortion in the glass.  Satisfied with the appearance of the wine, we then proceeded to examine the scent.   Marcel gripped the wine glass stem with the tender embrace of a lover, swilling the contents around the globe to release all the flavour.  Examining the scent of wine is no place for genteel delicacy as Marcel demonstrated by thrusting his prominent nose into the glass and inhaling deeply.  Swirling round about the bowl with the precise judgement of a master craftsman, he brought the wine to the very rim of the glass, but never spilt a drop of this precious liquid, before repeating the sniffing process.  My every action was scrutinised with great care as I followed his example.  Marcel took a final deep sniff, gave a huge sigh of pleasure and raising the glass to his lips, and took a generous swallow.  He rolled the wine around his mouth, his intense pleasure indicated by his flashing eyes opening wide and cheeks crinkling with merriment.  As I drank from my own glass, Marcel partly opened his mouth and sucked in a great gulp of air, like an ill-bred navvy slurping soup.  He continued swirling the wine around his mouth, overdosing on the sensation, before finally, swallowing with a sigh of the most intense pleasure. Savouring the feeling for several seconds, he assured me that this after-taste, lingering in the complicated series of channels which make up the body’s sinus system, is the ultimate test of a convivial wine.  I followed his example to the best of my ability, albeit my slurping left a little to be desired, too decorous by far, but I remembered every aspect of the lesson with gratitude.

“You always swallow?” I asked.

“Bien sur, what else?”

“I thought perhaps…” I mimed the act of spitting out the wine, not knowing the French verb “to spit”. (I still don’t know the word).

“Merde”, he spluttered “jamais”.   It was clear that the practise of spitting out the wine was only applicable when being offered a taste of a new wine, which, when newly introduced into the casks, would bear no resemblance to what it would later become.  A knowledgeable palate would be able to discern the likely outcome of this young wine, but would obtain all the necessary information from a taste of the wine on the sensitive areas of the mouth and tongue.  The stomach would be unlikely to appreciate such a young wine and in these circumstances, it would be quite in order to spit it out.  This would clearly be more appropriate to a wine taster from Paris or some other large city, but my companion left me in no doubts that spitting out his wine would be considered the ultimate heresy.  I could not imagine the consequences if anyone had the temerity to spit out a mouthful of Marcel’s wine.

“What wine do you like yourself?” I enquired, savouring the rich fruity flavours exploding from my glass.

“All of my own, naturellement, but also Muscadet and the wine of the Rhone delta.”

Marcel does not grow Muscadet which is more suited to the cooler damper areas around Nantes, but is a great admirer of the classical dry white, superb with shellfish, especially oysters.  He has lain in stocks,  “only a few bottles, perhaps fifty or sixty”, for the Christmas and New Year festivities.  His particular favourite wine for a special occasion would be either Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a wine that keeps forever and is always magnificent, fruity, rich and “trés fort”, or, even more impressive, Hermitage, made from the Syrah grape which Marcel coverts for his own vineyard, and has planted a few rows to see how they fare.  He regards Hermitage as the greatest of all red wines, “le champion”, he affirmed, eyes flashing as he spoke of the great passion of his life.  Wine to a Frenchman is a subject very dear to the heart.  Other subjects are widely discussed: politics, the weather, football and rugby, food and all its attendant rituals, but the greatest respect is given to wine.  Marcel would not thank me for the observation that sex is a passing fancy compared to wine; he is, after all, a Frenchman, but, in his heart, he knows it to be true.

Refreshed, educated and invigorated, I followed Marcel back to the yard.  I had learned a valuable lesson and gone some way towards understanding the powerful grip that the product of the simple grape holds over these men who earn their living from its cultivation