Wine therapy

If anything could pull me out of my depression about the lost barn then a wine tasting at VinEcole would be a pretty good bet.

I had booked my place at 'The rising stars of the Languedoc' tasting some weeks ago. As a result of a recommendation from Matthew Stubbs, owner of VinEcole, I found myself chauffeuring two Irish guests there as well - I can't complain, without the referral they wouldn't have been staying here at 42rvh and I was driving there anyway so two extra people in the car made no difference.

There were two of the featured winemakers present, which made the tasting of their wines more interesting and a large diverse group covering eight different nationalities.

As I am increasingly finding from these tastings and my own exploration of the wine of the region, there are a great number of very very exciting and delicious white wines being made here in the region.

I was totally stunned by the four whites that I tasted tonight - one from an estate whose red wines I have admired for a long time (Mas du Soleilla), one from Saint Chinian (Mas Champart), a fabulous red wine region but not the first great white I have had from there, one from Collioure (Domaine de la Rectorie), which by chance I had also served at dinner with Daniel and Cecile last Saturday and one from Limoux (Domaine de Mouscaillo), a beautifully balanced and clean chardonnay and I had the pleasure of sitting next to the winemaker for the night.

Equally, I was disappointed by the red wines on offer. The Languedoc produces a massive amount of fruity, spicy, delicious red wine and the standard is improving all the time too. As a result, I think that many producers are starting to try and produce something a little bit different - to try and make it stand out and be recognised and yet, what they should be doing, in my mind, is just making the best example of the best wines of this region because there is nothing wrong with them if they get it right and they market them properly.

Rant, rant - I'm in that sort of mood.

Tonight I sampled a 100% cabernet franc (Domaine Gayda), which had a fragrant fruity nose but was strong and powerful and dry - there is a reason that this grape is used in blends, a Corbieres that was 95% mourvedre (Ch La Baronne) that was so tannic that it sucked all the moisture and feeling from my mouth - ditto the comment re blending, a 100% carignan from the Roussillon (Clot de l'Oum) which blew my head off with it's intensity - ditto blending encore, and a 90% syrah (Ch Canet) which was the only red of the four that I really liked.

I adore all those grapes but I think I might prefer them in a classic Minervois or Corbieres GSM blend rather than as an 'almost' single cepage wine. Interestingly, Syrah can be quite an obnoxious wine on it's own - just think of Aussie Shiraz - same thing, more jazzy antipodean name but this syrah was a stand-out wine.

Maybe it helped having Floris, the Dutch owner of the estate, there to explain it all. He even bought along a bottle of the just pressed 2009 wine so that we could compare it to the 2007 we were tasting - how fantastic was that - these grapes had been harvested over the last few weeks and just pressed and this was the initial result.

This is what wine buyers taste to assess the quality of the vintage and to make their expert opinions as to whether it will be great or not. Well I can tell you that 2009 will be a great vintage in the Languedoc - the summer drought has reduced quantity but the quality is great. The Ch Canet 2009 tasted of raw red fruit but it was already a better wine than many other finished products I have tasted and it won't be ready for consumption or sale for another year.

The 2007 was as soft and round and fruity as a lovingly prepared Syrah could ever be - joy.

So what's my point? Well just that wine constantly and consistently surprises and amuses me - and that's the beauty of it - always a lovely, exciting and new discovery to be made, always a new winemaker to meet and get to know, always a new taste experience. I love it.

On the other hand, just don't mention barns to me.

Second best

It has been the most disappointing and frustrating weekend imaginable. It was fabulous to have Debrah here in France for the weekend of course but events beyond our control meant that rather than spending the time excitedly planning a new project together for 2010, we are back to square one and resigned to plan B.

Last Wednesday, the day before Debrah flew out, I had a call from the agent - I assumed the call was to confirm the appointment for the second viewing of the barn that I first looked at a couple of weeks ago - but no, it was to inform me that an asking price offer had been accepted.

Naturally we still went to look at it, directly from the airport on arrival. Naturally it was everything Debrah expected and naturally, it could have been everything that she has envisaged it would be. Our annoyance, frustration and depression could not have been greater.

We called the agent again. "Is there any chance of a counter offer?", we pleaded. In true French agent fashion they kept us waiting over the weekend - stringing out the agony before, eventually, we got the dreaded news that a 'compromis de vente' had been signed and that was pretty much that.

At the same time, in expectation of us moving to France permanently, I had put our UK apartment up for sale. Despite the poor housing market there, we have received an offer. It's not quite enough but it was encouraging.

So, over the weekend we went through plan after plan and scenario after scenario, different options, different incomes, good and bad points of each, searched our hearts and our heads and finally decided that it would have to be back to the initial thinking for 2010.

The one thing that absolutely isn't going to happen for 2010 is that Debrah and I will spend most of the year living and working in different countries - as we have for most of the last four years.

So, the London apartment will come back off the market and I will go back to London at the end of the month when the last of my current bookings has departed. Unless by some miracle the barn comes back or a similar one appears from nowhere, we will spend next year in the UK and the apartments here will be let out on a self-catering only basis, which will work very well no doubt because of their excellent location and design.

There is nothing wrong with plan B - it just isn't plan A.

Good dinner

Sometimes I really get to enjoy my job - like evenings when I have to prepare and share dinner with an interesting and diverse group of intelligent and likeable people from all walks of life and from all over the world.

Tonight was one such occasion and all thanks to the inability to find a decent restaurant for guests to go to on a Monday night slightly out of season in France - well in Carcassonne anyway, but I suspect it applies to a wider group of similar small provincial towns across the country.

Now that we are into October, all of the restaurants that I recommend for guests who are looking for something slightly better than a basic brasserie, are closed on a Sunday and Monday night - actually some of them are always closed on those days even in the height of the Summer tourist season.

So my Mexican guests who arrived late yesterday were asking me this morning about dinner tonight and I was struggling to advise them. "Can you do dinner for us?, asked Antonieta. I couldn't say no in the same way I couldn't resist her original email asking "I want stay your luxury hotel". I'm not criticizing her English at all, it was sweet. My Spanish is rubbish.

My Australian guests arrived late this afternoon after a long drive across country from Tours. I could tell that they were weary and needed looking after - I offered and they jumped at the chance to have dinner at home so to speak.

When I woke up this morning I was going to be eating on my own tonight - finishing off the coq au vin that I prepared yesterday - by 6pm I was cooking a dinner for five.

They were all young - by which I mean under 40 and probably well under 40 - a corporate lawyer with his own firm employing 30 or so qualified staff, a specialist in pacemaker surgery and defibrillators who recently won a 'clinitian of the year' award, a graphic designer turned art therapist and a architect turned health care worker. Both women had designed their own homes - both men built what they were told to build - that sounds horribly familiar but very successful as a formula.

Naturally with Australians in the house the conversation turned to Skippy the kangaroo!

Naturally with Mexicans in the house the conversation turned to swine flu ( we all agreed that it wasn't their fault) and the new trend for premium grade sipping tequila.

We also discussed at some length why Central America celebrates Columbus Day (it was today by the way) as a national holiday when he bought the misery of European invasion onto the indigineous peoples of the region. Funnily enough, they hadn't really thought of it like that. I guess they focus on the positive benefits - whatever they may be.

Well you get the gist of it all - it was varied and intelligent and serious and light hearted - and the very essence of a good get together around the dinner table.

I just have the washing up to finish off.

Late or early?

When the booking form came back I didn't notice the anomaly and filed it away with the others. It was only when I looked at it again a couple of days ago that I realised there might be a problem. The arrival date stated Monday 12th October but the travel details said 'arrive by car on Sunday afternoon'. Hmmm.

The clients in question are a couple from Mexico - my first from Central America - and their whole booking was a little bit strange with an initial confusion over dates and then a double payment in the wrong currency, which left me owing them some money - thankfully not the other way round.

Bizarrely and as it turned out fortunately, I had no bookings this weekend and I had taken the precaution of making sure their suite was prepared just in case they did turn up on Sunday afternoon.

I have no idea why I had no bookings for the weekend. I had clients in all three suites up until Friday night and have clients all next week. In all honesty, the weekend was a bit dull here on my own but I did get the chance to have a lie in this morning (until ten, don't you know - can't remember the last time that happened, weekend or no weekend) and I did drive out to have another look at the barn.

Well nobody turned up in the afternoon and nobody called. It looked like it was just a typing error on the form and they were coming tomorrow - that is, until the phone rang at 10.30pm. It was my Mexicans, they were in Carcassonne but couldn't find me and didn't know where to park the car.

What can you do or say in such circumstances? Nothing really. I went out to get them, showed them where to park the car, helped them with their luggage and got them settled into their apartment. They seem a very nice couple.

I am just glad I'd prepared for the eventuality and that I wasn't already in my pyjamas.

Changeable

After a month of waking up, looking out of the window, and thinking 'blue sky and 30 degrees again', we had quite a lot of weather today.

It rained all through last night and was still drizzling this morning when I went out to the boulangerie for breakfast supplies. I even dug out a rainproof jacket especially for the occasion.

By the time I had prepped and delivered the three breakfast trays the rain had eased and a mean and moody sky was glowering over the town as I completed my market shopping for this evenings client dinner. It was steamy and humid but by no means cold - despite the locals being wrapped up in coats and scarves!

I dragged myself out on my bike (it's been about 10 days since my last outing) and pedalled off out into the Minervois. I can't remember seeing the landscape look so dramatic. There was low cloud hanging around the top of the Alaric mountains but the longer I was out the more the sky cleared until patches of blue emerged and the sun started to shine through.

Instantly the temperature shot up and steam started rising off the tarmac as the sun dried the damp roads. The contrast between the sun and the slate grey clouds was breathtakingly beautiful.

I was so distracted by this loveliness that I found myself in Marseillette after an hour of cycling and realised that it was of course the same distance back again. Ease myself back in to it I had thought - 40kms and two hours by the time I got back - and not a little weary from the effort. Today's ride took my total distance covered to over 500kms since I bought my bike computer back in late July - bloody hell, that's quite a long way.

When I met Cecile for a coffee in the square the sky was cloudless and the temperature was back up in the mid twenties - it was a glorious sunny afternoon. All my guests came back to change their clothes, having gone out prepared for a cool and damp day - which to be honest is what it looked like at 9.00am this morning. A rainy day in the Languedoc = an hour of rain and lots of sun either side of it.

Dinner for two sets of guests this evening was accompanied by the biggest, longest, loudest, brightest, noisiest, wettest, thunderstorm I can ever remember. Just as the guests arrived I detected the faintest distant rumble and mentioned that we might have a storm - understatement or what.

Ten minutes later the lightning was flashing across the sky every 60 seconds, the rain was lashing down the street and the thunder was drowning out all attempts at conversation. I picked a good night to not send them out to a restaurant.

It's all calm again now - the sky is quiet, the dinner is over, the guests have gone to bed and the washing up has been done (or is still doing in the dishwasher) and I have reached the limit of today's personal energy allowance - I'm pooped.

Food is for sharing

It's all smelling a bit fishy in the kitchen as a result of my impulse market buying this morning. Having made a casserole at the weekend in London, I went shopping with that in mind but somehow came back with mackerel for lunch and a kilo of mussels for supper.

I'm not really sure what happened but it seems my head rejected the idea of red meat and craved a bit of omega 3 - and once I was over by the fish counter my brain started trawling through it's store of fishy recipes and pan cooked mackerel with shallot, tomato and capers and moules mariniere is what came out.

I guess I have to be happy with that - it's the very essence of Mediterranean market shopping - looking at what looks good on the day and buying accordingly. So I was very interested to read recently that McDonalds in France is one of their biggest markets outside the USA (bigger than the UK and growing faster) and that Picard, purveyors of gourmet ready frozen meals, is by no means suffering during the economic downturn. So much for the myth of the French pulling up some vegetables from the garden for their supper.

Despite the outward socialist demeanour, capitalism is hard at work here.

I have noticed, however, that even when the French are eating sandwiches or takeaway food they still find a place to sit down and eat together either as a family or with work colleagues or with friends - the conviviality of sharing food survives and that is a very good thing.

I ate both my lunch and my supper on my own at home. I love my food and I love cooking and eating but there are days when I find it hard to put in the effort to prepare a good meal just for myself.

I did today, twice. Mind you, I had enough for two, if not three, this evening.

A kilo of mussels doesn't look that much especially when they are small ones and take up less room in your bag. When I got back from the market I made a pond for them in the sink and let them swim about a bit whilst I got on with my jobs. When it came to cleaning them this evening I realised how many were there - either that or they multiply like rabbits when your back is turned. It took a good half hour or more to clean them and with only me eating it took a good half hour or more to pick each one out of it's shell and devour the sweet little delicious morsels.

It's impossible to read while eating mussels because you have to concentrate on what you are doing - and with no-one to talk to, it ends up being a bit of a chore. It's the sort of food where you need to be able to talk to someone without looking at them or if you must look at them, they won't mind you waving a mussel shell, the one you use for picking out the other mussels from their shells, in your face. Oh for someone to say "You had more than me" or "That's not a very big mussel" type innuendo. I even gave up on spooning the residual winey buttery juice into my mouth and picked my bowl up and drank it down in one go - now that's very French.

Moules Mariniere is a wonderful, fabulous, delicious, evocative, French classic - just don't eat it, or anything else if you can help it, on your own.

Into the light

When I left London this morning it was grey and damp and drizzly stood on the platform at Tottenham Hale station. It didn't help that I was dressed for the South of France - short sleeved polo shirt, linen jacket, jeans, loafers and no socks. I can't remember the last time I wore socks without it being a special occasion (my Mum's birthday lunch I think).

Back in Carcassonne it was blue sky, breezy and warm - not as warm as it has been but still warm - warm enough to put my shorts on again and not to bother with socks.

Fortunately for me, this morning was the only bad day during my five day London trip, so I really can't complain at all. I flew back last Wednesday immediately after checking out guests and went straight into London sorting mode - there was lots to do.

I had my toothache attended to on Thursday morning followed by my unruly hair and the car key problem fixed on Friday, which took all morning and entailed me sitting about in London traffic going nowhere very fast for a good three hours - what a waste of time.

Then over the weekend we got to work getting Christian's recently vacated room back into shape. Rubbish disposed of, dust and sundry shit hoovered up from every nook and cranny and all the walls repainted - it looks quite nice now, although there is still a lingering smell of teenage boy about the space - which isn't pleasant. I also painted the hallway and generally started the preparation for putting the appartment on the market.

Well that's the plan anyway. Sell in London, buy again in France and live together in peace and love in exile. It's a good plan.

Irrespective of all that, the highlight of the last week was just spending five days with Debrah - eating, talking, drinking, planning, painting, watching TV - whatever we did we were able to do together and that makes for a very pleasant change. I now just have to see out the October bookings and then I can go back to put the plan into action and we will never have to spend so much time apart again - hurrah for that.

I did some cooking for Debrah too whilst I was there - roast belly pork, roast chicken, a pea and ham risotto and a cow face casserole (ox cheek to be exact). It's all credit to Debrah that she didn't bat an eyelid when I said that I had bought ox cheek instead of stewing steak - most men and women I know would have run a mile before eating it, which would have been their enormous loss. It was delicious, marinated in red wine and herbs and then cooked very very slowly with onion, lardons. carrots, turnips, mushrooms and thyme. Debrah has three portions left over to soften the blow of my absence until she comes out here next week.

It felt really strange just cooking for myself again this evening. I have three sets of new guests on Wednesday and a dinner to host on Thursday, which will keep me busy, but just isn't the same.