just the wine bit for now...

Well today's homework is on wine. An excellent source of enjoyment
& bonhomie.

Now as l'm sure you remember l am rather partialed to the odd glass or 2 of the old red, and so was to be the case on our recent visit to Chateau Lasserre. The Duchess purtled out of the village like an old Queen, attaching corners with such vim & gusto that belied her great age, taking us, in some style, l might add, to the aptly named Domaine Le Fort .


Hurtling past vineyards & sunflowers we headed to a rather small but perfectly formed domaine & the ever open bottles of the degustion. Nestling in the corner of an ancient animal byre in what had once, many years ago, been a fortified barn, sat rows of bottles. Grape varieties with the scintillating names as Viognier, Baies des Anges, sauvignon blanc & the good old Bridget Jones stand by in the form of the old perennial favorite, chardonnay graced the bottles of white, whilst of my favourite tipple, the reds there were such classics as pinot noir, malbec, syrah and what was even better was even the most expensive bottles were still under
10€, now how good was that? l must confess to not really being a great lover of the white, but the Viognier 2006 had um, don't sound tooo pretentious girl, the most wonderful bouquet of [calm down] sort of - spring really, fresh, crisp, summer fruity like.......


What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon especially as it is some time since l had visited a vineyard as such. In my childhood Dad & me used to compete in the Angers Air Rally, & the best bit, apart that is from spotting the Chateau, was the tasting of the wines. Those were the days, scrabbling around the floors under tables collected sparkling wine corks to take home.

Did we bring wine home? Well yes. A couple of wine boxes, [merlot & chardonnay] which we had to book in as an extra piece of hold luggage, such a waste, due to recent security paranoia. Did it damage the contents of those precious boxes? Nope!