Wine Tasting, Normandy, Mont Saint Michel, Saint Malo

    Okay, I know, it's about time I started writing again! It has been a long and eventful week. The weather is becoming colder and more wet, and the leaves are beginning to change and fall from the trees. Upon arriving in Angers, the weather was sunny and comfortable, so you can imagine how grumpy and lazy this week has been now that we're all adjusting to the cool, damp, and depressingly overcast weather. I miss the sun!

I believe I left off just before the wine tasting excursion that took place Thursday, September 23rd. I had a short history lesson that morning, and then after a kabob for lunch, I boarded the bus for the small village of Savennièrs. It was almost comical (but mostly terrifying) watching our over-sized tour bus squeeze through the narrow streets of small rural villages on the way to Savennièrs. In many places, the small buildings (typically just small stone houses) were built right up on each side of the small two lane roads, so there were a few near misses between our bus and smaller cars and buildings. The worst is the traffic circles. The French LOVE their traffic circles. I'm sure they are completely tolerable in a smaller car, but in the tour bus, they felt like spinning carnival rides.

When we arrived at the château (Château des Vaults), an older woman met us at the gate. Her name was Madame Pontebriand, and the château and vineyard had been in her family for centuries. We followed Madame Pontebriand across her beautifully landscaped lawn, past her well preserved château (which was less of a castle like building and more of a glorified country estate if you ask me), and up a wooded path to a bridge. Apparently, in the 19th century, the village of Savennièrs divided her property with a city road, and in turn, built a bridge that linked her larger estate with her vineyard located up a steep hill. Anyway, we crossed the old bridge and climbed the steep hillside until we reached a clearing filled with rows of grape vines. It was gorgeous. From the hilltop, the Loire Valley stretched out into the distance, and you could also see the small village below.

In her vineyard, Madame Pontebriand explained in detail the history of the wine industry in France, beginning with its origin, the Romans. She spoke poetically about the concept of terroir, which is the idea that the land on which the wine is cultivated is unique, and will yield a wine unique from any other region.

The concept of terroir means that wines from a particular region are unique, incapable of being reproduced outside that area, even if the grape variety and winemaking techniques are painstakingly duplicated. Winemakers in Burgundy do not believe that they are producing Pinot noir that happens to be grown in Burgundy, but that they are producing unique Burgundian wines that happen to be made from Pinot noir. Terroir is often italicized in English writing to show that it is a French loanword. The concept of terroir is at the base of the French wine Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) system that has been the model for appellation and wine laws across the globe. At its core is the assumption that the land from which the grapes are grown imparts a unique quality that is specific to that region. The amount of influence and the scope that falls under the description of terroir has been a controversial topic in the wine industry.

Basically, in France, wine is categorized by appellation or region (a legally defined and protected geographical indication used to identify where the grapes for a wine were grown. Other types of foods have appellations as well, i.e. cheeses). The rest of the world, categorizes wine based solely on the type of grape used, and then attempts to maintain the exact flavor and standard each year by artificially adapting the flavor through a process called micro oxygenizing. In France, however, wine is supposed to vary year to year. When you drink wine from a specific appellation, you are tasting the land that the wine was grown on, the amount of sunlight it recieved, the amount of rainfall before the harvest, the temperature of the soil, the type of soil, etc.


After giving such a vivid explanation of the history of French wine, and also an insight into her own growing style, Madame Pontebriand walked through the rows of grapes with us, shelling out even more detail about what to look for in each grape. While we were walking, I stayed close to her so that I could get every word. I had specific questions about the acidity of wine, and she explained in great detail how to achieve the perfect balance between a sweet and an acidic taste.

There was also a 19th century park on the grounds of the château, and on our way back to the tasting, we had the opportunity to stroll through it and learn more about the process of shipping the wines throughout the past 200 years.


Once back at the château, we were taken into a large room with tables set up for our tasting. There were instructions given on how to first check the color of the wine in your glass, then swirl and inhale the wine as you taste. When tasting, Madame Pontebriand said to do almost a chewing motion to spread the wine evenly across the pallet. I'm sure it all sounds cheesy and pretentious, but I could actually understand the different smells and tastes of the wine as she was explaining them. It was an excellent crash course in appreciating fine wine, and I can gladly say that none of us used the provided spittoons.

That night, I had my first experience at a night club in Angers. We did our regular rounds to the few good student bars, met up with some friends from Notre Dame, and then made our way to a club called Le Boléro. The way it works here, is that the bars close at around two in the morning, and then the clubs fill up at that point and they are open until six or seven. I wish I had pictures from the inside of the place. It looked like it could have once been a small theatre, but where the stage would have been, there was a large black-lit mural of a tropical waterfall and a topless woman. The music was mostly in English, and it was all dance hits from the 70's and 80's. It was really a blast!

The weekend that followed was uneventful. The weather was too poor to really do anything outside, and I had plenty of homework and chores to do at the residence. Monday I had a homework due in every class, and also a French test (that I made a B on!!) Tuesday there was a pastry tasting in my French culture class. Wednesday was also uneventful.

Thursday was a day to prepare for our upcoming Normandy excursion. We watched Saving Private Ryan, and then had a lecture by a former British Ambassador about the strategy behind the D-Day invasion. It was very interesting and very depressing at the same time, but much of what the man was saying I had never known before.

Saturday morning, everyone boarded the bus at 8am for our trip to Normandy. After a long three hour drive, we arrived in Bayeux, and had a small picnic in the rain. We had just enough time to power-walk through the local cathedral, and saw a pretty cool Romanesque crypt before getting back on the bus and driving to Point du Hoc.

Point du Hoc is a large cliff that juts out into the English Channel (la Manche). It was heavily fortified with German bunkers and large weapons during WWII. On D-Day, United States Rangers scaled the cliffs and took out the fortified bunkers (with the help of air bombing raids). The land was actually given to the United States in the 70's and the current memorial is operated by the United States. Walking up on the memorial, it was overcast and lightly raining. The land is littered with 20 feet deep craters and half destroyed and buried bunkers (a few of which we climbed into). I hadn't expected to still see craters and crumbling Nazi bunkers still at the site, and walking through them was surreal. They were pitch black, mud and puddles covered the floor, and there were still bullet holes in the walls. Many of the original metal doors still sat rusted to their frames in the bunkers, and we maneuvered through some tight spaces so that we could see inside. The whole experience made the subject matter of Thursday that much more important.

After Point du Hoc, we traveled to Omaha Beach to see the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. We had the opportunity to hike down the hillside to the expansive beach and see the same landscape that our soldiers saw on June 6th, 1944 when they landed there. Despite the overcast weather, it would have been a very pretty beach had I not been thinking about the thousands of men who died there. We lingered shortly on the beach and hiked back up to the cemetery that overlooks the beach from the hillside. The gravestones and their organization resembled that of Arlington Cemetery in Washington D.C., and the view was just brilliant. Past the landscape was the long beach, and then the English Channel as far as the horizon. It was very strange to hear other languages spoken at a site that was so distinctly American. For example, there were many German tourists at the cemetery.

To continue our excursion across the beaches of Normandy, we then went to Arromanches AKA Gold Beach, which was a British landing site. The beach was also the site of two Mulberry Harbours, and there were still sunken breakwater barges outlining the harbor.

A Mulberry Harbour was a type of temporary harbour developed in World War II to offload cargo on the beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy.Two prefabricated or artificial military harbours were taken across the English Channel from Britain with the invading army in sections and assembled off the coast of Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion of France in 1944.

That night, we ate at such an amazing restaurant called Le Relais du Roy, near Mont Saint-Michel. We had two bottles of wine at our table of six, and half-way through the delicious coursed meal, we were each given a shot of a local liqueur to open our stomachs for more food. The main course was a type of Ray, and it was delicious! Mmmmmmm.

There was a small party that night at the very nice hotel that we stayed at. We got very hungry later and tried to crash a wedding that was happening at a place across the street called Cabaret, but were unsuccessful.

Sunday was all about Mont Saint-Michel and Saint Malo. Mont Saint-Michel has one of the oldest churches in France, and is a very well known national monument. It used to be situated on an island, but the tourist road that was constructed has since connected it to the mainland. There were about 4 gates as we entered the village, and they were all heavily fortified (which came in handy during the Hundred Years War). The village curved up and around the sides of the mountain and the one small street was surrounded by tall ancient buildings that now housed crêpe stands, restaurants, and souvenir shops. There were so many steps and SO many mosquitos (moustiques). Yet again, astounding views.

Once inside the Church at the top of the mountain, our guide told us all about the half of the church that was Romanesque, and the other half that was Gothic. We wound our way down and around the mountain from the inside, and saw the cafeterias, kitchens, and crypts of the abbey. I have to say, I definitely preferred walking down the mountain. The place was a labyrinth of winding passageways.

Once we were outside, ready to leave, we spotted a little piece of Texas that looked somewhat out of place! =]

    For lunch, we drove to Saint Malo, a walled in city that had been reduced to rubble during WWII, but has since been reconstructed. The city was very pretty for having almost no grass or trees. We walked through the maze of narrow cobblestone streets until we found a seafood restaurant, because seafood was supposed to be very good in the region of Brittany. We decided on a restaurant with mussels in the name. It didn't disappoint! I had a meat plate, a bucket of the best mussels I have ever had, fries, and a regional specialty: prune cake for desert. I also had some cider, which is also supposed to be a specialty of the region. During our meal, two French homeless men came over to our table and started asking for cigarettes and looking at our money (because we were about to pay). They really were very creepy and looked like pirates. As sketchy as they were, I couldn't help but almost laugh when one of them started trying to speak English. He was obviously drunk. They did finally leave us alone, no harm done, and we walked back to the bus focusing on the amazing food that we had enjoyed. Once on the bus, it was a short three hour ride back to Angers to do homework!

Kevin