Bread and wine
Nov. 25th, 2022 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustA random post about our holiday in Brittany; only not exactly random, because I could equally have titled it Good things in unexpected places, or A tale of two mills. Not to mention, what could be more connected, less random, than bread and wine?
First, the bread:
En route from Saint Malo to Paimpol, we plunged into a commercial centre on the edge of Saint Brieuc where our information told us there was a supermarket with a charge point. By the time we had definitely failed to find it, we were sufficiently ready for a late lunch to risk the bakery and tea shop at the entrance to the centre, the Moulin d'Elise. My tuna sandwich was good; even better was a kouign amann, a traditional Breton cake dripping with butter; but best of all was the view from our table of the bread counter. I wished I could buy a loaf, or two ...
Most of the wine we drank in Brittany was the local muscadet; we also drank quite a bit of cider. We enjoyed both of these, but neither was exactly a suprise. But twice we were served red wine which was quite unexpectedly good, and both times that wine was a corbières.
The first time was that same evening, in Paimpol. Weary and a bit frazzled after a day's car-wrangling, we walked along the row of restaurants which line the harbour, all of them offering variations on much the same menu, and settled on the last and most casual looking of them (once we had checked that yes, despite appearances, it was open and serving food). We sat outside, and we ordered steak and chips. Red wine, then, and from the narrow selection on offer, we ordered half a litre of corbières. It came as a full bottle, and we confirmed that it was what we had ordered, before two thirds of it were poured into a jug for us (I hadn't met this practice before, but it happened several times this trip: it means you get more choice of wines in smaller quantities, which is good). Then the bottle was taken away, of course, so I can't be more precise about what it was. It wasn't so phenomenal that I rushed into the restaurant and demanded to see the bottle again: it was just a really satisfying, rich red wine, good enough to remind me that we used to drink corbières quite often, and to make me wonder why we had lost sight of it lately.
Once upon a time, corbières and minervois were our two go-to reds: Sainsbury's stocked both, and they were more than reasonably priced. That's probably my earliest memory of the wines of the southwest, and it could go back to 1985, when the two regions gained their AOC status. We have actually visited Corbières (though we were more impressed by Minerve, on the same trip).
The second corbières of the trip was equally unexpected. We were in Dinan on the last night of the holiday, and we had identified a restaurant which looked really interesting. It wasn't open at lunchtime when we passed, or we'd have tried to book, but we hoped that turning up early would get us a table. It didn't, perhaps because it was Monday, and many places weren't open. Eventually we found a large and not very busy restaurant in the market place: it didn't look very promising, but it would do. I can't even remember what I ate there (it may have been pizza, which was certainly on the menu). From a very short wine list I chose what looked like the most interesting option (it was certainly the most expensive), a bottle of faugères. What we were given, though, was this Vieux Moulin corbières, which hadn't been on the list. I can take a hint. We drank it. It was spectacular, elegant, fruity, well balanced... Am I overreacting to having had such low expectations to begin with? Perhaps. Bring me another bottle, and I'll tell you. It certainly rescued what set out to be an anticlimactic end to the holidays.
ETA: I was forgetting to say that as a result of these two bottles, we were on the lookout for corbières when we made our end-of-holiday visit to Terre et vins, our regular stop on the edge of Dinan. We didn't need to be: there was a big display, front and centre, of two wines from Castelmaure co-operative: these two, in fact, Castor and Pollux. They are described as 'ephemeral wines', which I think means they produce a different themed wine each yeat. It could have been a triumph of marketing - well, it is a triumph of marketing, but they are also a couple of very drinkable wines. Pollux is grenache / syrah, open and fruity, Castor is dominated by carignan, more structured.
First, the bread:
En route from Saint Malo to Paimpol, we plunged into a commercial centre on the edge of Saint Brieuc where our information told us there was a supermarket with a charge point. By the time we had definitely failed to find it, we were sufficiently ready for a late lunch to risk the bakery and tea shop at the entrance to the centre, the Moulin d'Elise. My tuna sandwich was good; even better was a kouign amann, a traditional Breton cake dripping with butter; but best of all was the view from our table of the bread counter. I wished I could buy a loaf, or two ...
Most of the wine we drank in Brittany was the local muscadet; we also drank quite a bit of cider. We enjoyed both of these, but neither was exactly a suprise. But twice we were served red wine which was quite unexpectedly good, and both times that wine was a corbières.
The first time was that same evening, in Paimpol. Weary and a bit frazzled after a day's car-wrangling, we walked along the row of restaurants which line the harbour, all of them offering variations on much the same menu, and settled on the last and most casual looking of them (once we had checked that yes, despite appearances, it was open and serving food). We sat outside, and we ordered steak and chips. Red wine, then, and from the narrow selection on offer, we ordered half a litre of corbières. It came as a full bottle, and we confirmed that it was what we had ordered, before two thirds of it were poured into a jug for us (I hadn't met this practice before, but it happened several times this trip: it means you get more choice of wines in smaller quantities, which is good). Then the bottle was taken away, of course, so I can't be more precise about what it was. It wasn't so phenomenal that I rushed into the restaurant and demanded to see the bottle again: it was just a really satisfying, rich red wine, good enough to remind me that we used to drink corbières quite often, and to make me wonder why we had lost sight of it lately.
Once upon a time, corbières and minervois were our two go-to reds: Sainsbury's stocked both, and they were more than reasonably priced. That's probably my earliest memory of the wines of the southwest, and it could go back to 1985, when the two regions gained their AOC status. We have actually visited Corbières (though we were more impressed by Minerve, on the same trip).
The second corbières of the trip was equally unexpected. We were in Dinan on the last night of the holiday, and we had identified a restaurant which looked really interesting. It wasn't open at lunchtime when we passed, or we'd have tried to book, but we hoped that turning up early would get us a table. It didn't, perhaps because it was Monday, and many places weren't open. Eventually we found a large and not very busy restaurant in the market place: it didn't look very promising, but it would do. I can't even remember what I ate there (it may have been pizza, which was certainly on the menu). From a very short wine list I chose what looked like the most interesting option (it was certainly the most expensive), a bottle of faugères. What we were given, though, was this Vieux Moulin corbières, which hadn't been on the list. I can take a hint. We drank it. It was spectacular, elegant, fruity, well balanced... Am I overreacting to having had such low expectations to begin with? Perhaps. Bring me another bottle, and I'll tell you. It certainly rescued what set out to be an anticlimactic end to the holidays.
ETA: I was forgetting to say that as a result of these two bottles, we were on the lookout for corbières when we made our end-of-holiday visit to Terre et vins, our regular stop on the edge of Dinan. We didn't need to be: there was a big display, front and centre, of two wines from Castelmaure co-operative: these two, in fact, Castor and Pollux. They are described as 'ephemeral wines', which I think means they produce a different themed wine each yeat. It could have been a triumph of marketing - well, it is a triumph of marketing, but they are also a couple of very drinkable wines. Pollux is grenache / syrah, open and fruity, Castor is dominated by carignan, more structured.
