THIRTY SIX THOUSAND BOTTLES OF GRAND CRU

Living amongst the Bergerac vines we thought it was time to discover some of the better known and more expensive Bordeaux wines.

The Bordeaux tourist office organises all sorts of different visits to many of the 10,000 châteaux in the area. We plumbed for a morning tour of two châteaux near St Emilion – Le Vieux Maillet which produces the renowned Pomerol and Château Ferrand owned by the Bic family (of Bic pen fame) and which produces a fine St Emillion Grand Crus.

Before embarking on this guided tour we decided to stay close to Bordeaux at Libourne in a small hotel called L'Hotel de France. The hotel had been a former Relais de Post ( a coaching Inn) and it had a certain old world charm but our room, which gave onto a busy road, was small, dark and uncomfortable.

In the reception area I noticed a group of Chinese sitting at a low table littered with bottles of half empty wine. To my surprise, on asking them whether they were here to buy wine, they asked whether I would like to taste the wines they had chosen to market back in China. Their guide and interpreter was a Chinese lady called Fanny Antoine who had a commercial wine business in Libourne.

“Please come a sit with us and try our wines. Taste this one first. It's a 2004 Château Grangere Grand Crus St Emillion,” she said

Explaining that I was no expert but was here as a tourist, I tentatively took a sip.

“What do you think? Go on drink some more,” she said filling my glass.

It was without doubt the best red wine I had ever tasted. Smooth, full bodied, slightly sharp but, by the same token, rounded and mellow. I told her so.

“Yes. Very good. I agree,” she said.

“Good , yes, you like? Have some more,” the Chinese buyers chimed in unison.

This was becoming a bit embarrassing as I had nothing to offer in return. I resorted to congratulating them on finding such a good wine asking whether they were exporting this to China.

“You want to know the price we bought this Château Grangere?” asked one.

“ The price is fifteen Euros a bottle. But you wouldn't get this price in the shops. I did a deal with the château because my clients bought several thousand bottles. They have bought two crates for shipment to China.” said Fanny

“How much wine do you get in two crates?” I asked,

“Thirty six thousand bottles,” she said

.

According to Xan, who appeared to be the leader of the group, this huge sum would be divided into approximately a third Grand Crus St Emilion, a third Pymorol and a third Grand Crus Pauliac.

The Chateau Grangere St Emilion was expected to be sold in China for a the equivalent of £40 a bottle, the Pomorol 2005 purchased for 19 Euros a bottle for £60 and the 2009 Pauillac for in excess of £100 a bottle

“What about the rumour that the Chinese mix this expensive wine with coca cola?” I asked

“Yes that was before our people became more educated about wine . They mixed their wines with Fanta. That's because the Chinese have a sweet tooth,” he said

The Chinese buyers were off early to Paris the next morning and we set out for the Bordeaux Tourist Office to join our tour.

There were seven of us plus our guide, Sybil. There was a couple from Argentina and another couple from Brazil and a young Chinese girl who drank for China.

On our way to St. Emilion Sybil gave us a running commentary.

She told us that there were 10,000 Châteaux in the Bordeaux area with 57 different appellations. St Emilion, she said, covered 5,400 hectares. There were 70 Châteaux each one with approximately 7 hectares and 95% family owned..

In the 8^th century a monk named Emilion from Brittany chose to withdraw from the world in a place called Ascumbas (the town's original name). Emilion evangelised the local population and created what became a major monastic centre that his followers named after him.

The jurade of Saint Emilion, the appellations vinous brotherhood, can trace its roots back to a royal charter issued in 1199 by John Lackland, King of England. In exchange for these rights, England was granted the “privilege des Vins de Saint Emilion” This meant that that English merchants had priority over everyone else with regard to buying the wines of St Emilion

The Romans started growing wine there 2000 years ago but, according to Sybil, it wasn't very good because they mixed wine with salt water.

The first vineyard we visited was Château de Ferrand, a miniature version of Versailles, owned by the Bic family since 1978. This Grand Crus St Emilion is made up of 75% Merlot, 15% Cabinet Franc and 10% Merlot. soil is clay and limestone and the yield is 49 hectare litres for 1 hectare. They produce 18000 bottles a year and 10 vintages. We tasted a 2004 Grand Crus which I found had a slight Tanin taste.

The second vineyard, Château Vieux Maillet, was in the tiny Pomerol sector whose gravel, sand and clay soils produce a red wine distinctly different from its St Emilion neighbours. We tasted a 2004 which was rich and smooth priced at 32 Euros a bottle. Just up the road from Château Vieux Maillet our guide pointed out a Château producing the fabulously expensive Petrus wine. A bottle of 1947 Grand Crus sells for 10,000 Euros. A 2009 vintage goes for less – a mere 3000 Euros.

A GRUESOME ENGLISH MURDER

Our neighbour in Les Mayets, Bernard was the first to tell me that an Englishman, who lived in a village only a few miles from us, had been found dead at his house.

That was three years ago in June 2009

He had apparently been murdered by another British national who had been staying with the deceased and there had been a heated argument.

Sure enough, the local regional newspaper, Sud Ouest carried a story in the Monday edition (June 30 2009) about the incident on its front page. Peter Fuller, aged 67, had died on Saturday night or early Sunday morning and his body was discovered by his ex-wife on Sunday at midday. He had suffered head wounds which were thought to be caused by a blunt instrument.

Fuller lived alone in a large house near Plaisance but for the last three weeks he had a young Englishman lodging with him who is said to be in his 30s. When the Gendarmes arrived at the scene the man had disappeared. The Sud Ouest reported that the man, who has not been named but who is the prime suspect in the murder case, boarded a plane at Bordeaux airport bound for London where he was detained by the British police.

Two of Fuller’s cars were missing. One, which had broken down or been involved in an accident, had been found abandoned near Fuller’s house. The other had apparently been used by the assailant to get to Bordeaux.

Formerly employed in the oil industry Fuller had been building an 18-hole golf course but was short of money and, to make ends meet, had started a restaurant selling English roasts and fish and chips.

On July 1^st 2009 the “SudOuest” reported that the suspected assailant of the retired English entrepreneur, Peter Fuller was Neil Andrew Ludlam aged 30. He could be sent back to France on the recommendation of English magistrates under “un mandate d’arret European”.

The body of Fuller was found by his ex-wife last Sunday morning at what was described as a “scene d’horreur”. He had been hit several times over the head with a blunt instrument.

According to French police Fuller was found face down in a sea of blood “une mare de sang”. There was evidence of a fierce fight. Furniture was turned upside down in the living room, the kitchen and in the dining room near the bar where empty bottles of alcohol and glasses were found. There were traces of blood on the walls and on the furniture.

Ludlam, who had been staying with Fuller, is reported to have fled the scene in one of Fuller’s cars. He was arrested by the British police at Luton airport when the aircraft he boarded in Bordeaux landed. He is reported to have had a large sum of cash on him.

One of the other unsolved mysteries is reported to be the theft of two cars stolen from Wheeler’s house. One was a red AX Citroen found crashed 12 kilometres from the scene of the crime. The other was a Mercedes coupe which has not yet been traced. The police have not been able to confirm whether this was the car Ludlam used to drive to Bordeaux airport.

It is also not known whether anyone else was involved in Peter Fuller's murder.

However “SudOuest” reported that this affair had created a degree of turmoil - “emoi” - in the British community living in the Dordogne.

Ludlam languished in a French jail for three years until he was finally found guilty of murdering his expatriate employer. He was sentenced by the Perigeux Tribunal de Justice to 18 years in prison for “stabbing and battering to death Peter Fuller in a drunken attack.”

The court heard that Mr. Fuller, 67, a retired Total oil engineer, was found face down in a pool of blood with cracked ribs, 59 injuries and seven stab wounds, including a punctured lung.

The Daily Telegraph carried the story of the trial on Saturday June 2. Ludlam is reported to have received well below the maximum 30-year term for murder after Charles Charollais, the prosecuting judge in Perigeux, argued that he had shown remorse and accepted responsibility for his crime.

An Englishman in the Dordogne

My blog, Letter from the Dordogne, has been converted into a book called "An Englishman in the Dordogne". The book will be published next year and will be available on Amazon.

I shall continue to update this blog.

Happy Christmas to all my readers.

Jeremy Clarkson is an O.K. bloke

People, who have been panning Jeremy Clarkson for saying public sector strikers should be shot, are forgetting that Clarkson spearheaded the Help for Heroes appeal. This has raised millions to help our brave soldiers who have been injured in Afghanistan. Much of this money has been put towards increasing and improving the wonderful facilities at Hedeley Court, the rehabilitation centre in Surrey, where seriously wounded soldiers who are given the chance of a full or partial recovery.

With reference to France, Jeremy Clarkson writing in yesterday (Saturday's) Sun, declared he wouldn't be buying a Peugeot because of the Frogs' outburst about our Prime Minister, David Cameron's veto of the proposed EEC Treaty to shore up the Euro. I can only say Jeremy may change his mind if he has a drive in my Peugeot SE 406 coupe. It's a fabulous car, only cost me £2,500 in the U.K. second hand. The only car to overtake it on the French motorways has been a Ferrari that was going so quick I was unable to clock the model.

Black Diamonds

11^th January 2011-01-11

It’s the Truffle season and so we make for Sainte Alvere 30 kms north east of Bergerac for the Monday market. The season runs from December until the end of February and the regional newspaper, SudOuest lists the markets in the Dordogne where “Truffes” can be bought and on what days. Sainte Alvere on Mondays; Ecideuil, Saint-Astier and Tarasson on Thursday; Riberac and Brantome on Friday; Perigeux, Sarlat, Bergerac and Thiviers on Saturday and on Sunday the Truffes market is at Sorges..

Sainte Alvere, a pretty market town in Perigord Noire, has a reputation for top quality truffles. In local parlance they are known as “black diamonds” costing as much as 1000 euros per kilo. For the princely sum of 10 euros we bought a small nugget the weight of a feather and which resembled a lump of hashish. Truffes are a tuber –“tuber melansoporum” - found near the base and roots of oak trees. Dogs are trained to sniff them out and pigs are sometimes used for the same purpose. The “truffe” taste is delicate with a distinct aroma that needs to be acquired by sampling a number of special dishes.

The SudOuest features recipes of local restaurateurs built around the essential truffle ingredient.These included Chausson a la Truffe et a la sauce Perigueux; Truffes sur panacotta; Le soufflé sucre a la truffe; Tartare de foie gras aux truffes, Bar truffe Rossini coulis d’ortie and Tournedos de foie fourre, jus sauce Perigeux. Suggested wines to accompany these delights were Bergerac rouges from Chateau Tour des Verdots, Chateau Moulin-Caresse, Chateau des Eyssards, and Chateau des Tours des Verdots and Bergerac blancs secs from La Tour des Gendres and Chateau Les Marinieres

At Sainte Alvere in a marquee opposite the covered market truffle omelettes were being served at 15 euros a head. The patron proudly announced that the truffles were from his own land a few kilometres outside the town. He had three trained Labradors to sniff them out. My omelette was delicious but frankly I found it difficult to detect immediately the taste of the “black diamond” which had been shaved into the omelette with a special truffle guillotine. Definitely an acquired taste!

According to the Mayor of Sainte Alvere, Philippe Ducene people have sufficient confidence to buy on the internet without seeing the merchandise.

“It’s a good sign that Parisian restraunters buy our truffles with their eyes closed,” he said

La Federation Trufficulteurs de la Dordogne represents 1,500 producers covering 132 hectares. Truffle production in the Perigord region is circa 10 tonnes but 40 tonnes of Truffles are produced throughout France. The other French departments producing “les truffes” are La Drome, le Vaucluse and Le Gard.

NB: please note that with an English keyborad I am unable to accent those French words that need one.

Lost in Translation

In the Sunday Times (21^st November issue) there’s an alarming article about how moving to France has affected previously happy couples. A full page feature with a banner headline, “Au Revoir, Darling”, tells of how many British women find their dream move to France ends in tears because the men run for home.

A lady called Louise Sawyer is reported as having started up an organisation called Waif – Women alone in France - a lifeline for women left abandoned in France by their partners who have left them with no money or means to cope. Louise Sawyer is part of a growing group of British women for whom the dream of “la belle vie” has turned into a nightmare because their spouses have either departed or died, often leaving them and their children with debt, legal problems and a property they cannot sell.

Louise started the help line after falling victim to being up the proverbial swanny without a paddle. She and her husband moved to a house in the Charente region of south west France ten years ago but in 2008 her husband went back to Britain with all their savings, leaving her to cope on her own. Louise has no family in England but even if she wanted to go home she couldn’t afford to buy a train ticket. She told The Sunday Times she is often hungry and cold and goes for days without talking to anyone.

One of the women quoted in the same piece is the sister-in-law of Tony Blair, Lauren Booth. Her marriage has apparently broken down after a family move to the Dordogne where her husband began drinking.

“The sad truth is that life in the European countryside can be as basic, boring and as downright exhausting as it was a century ago. The man gets drunk and resentful about his role as an odd-job man when once a happy executive or, in our case, a lad-about-town,” she said.

From the many calls she has received Louise Sawyer catalogues a startling list of woe. An Irish doctor, whose wife wrote to Louise, was said to have gone back to Ireland with a French woman he had met on a train. Another woman called Jane spoke of her husband’s dream of moving to France in 2004. A year after they arrived, he began an affair with a British woman. He returned to England with her in 2006. Heather Davey said she was persuaded to move to France by an Australian she met in 2004. A decorator and amateur pilot, he planned to do up the property and run a private business flying small planes. After running up debts of £27000 and siphoning off £24000 from the joint bank account the man walked out and returned to England last year leaving her and two teenagers in France to cope on their own with no money.

The same article quotes Angela Simmons, an agony aunt, for theFrenchPaper, a monthly newspaper for expatriates.

“Men can lose their role as manager of the household because it is often the woman who speaks the language. Men might become depressed because they have nothing to do.

“It’s often hard for the English to integrate. You’ve got to be able to speak the language. The climate is different from what you expect – they usually come in summer and in winter it’s cold and damp,” she said.

There for the grace of God go I.

Shit Happens

THE SHIT SHIFTER



Our lovely house in the Dordogne, with its classic Perigordine roof, vines covering the exterior walls, marble fire places and polished floor boards, lacks just one thing - a fosse septique (septic tank). Instead the sewage seeps away into what is known as a “fosse communal” – a drain which flows into an open pit in our neighbour’s field just across from the house.

Our only WC requires an electric pump which churns up the excrement after which the remains flow into the aforementioned pit. The system seems to work as long as one is judicious about the amount of loo paper used, otherwise it is time to roll up your sleeves. If a warm westerly is blowing then it is not advisable to set up table for breakfast or lunch on our small patch of front lawn, a stones throw from the “fosse communal”.

If the sun is shining and a large evacuation is pending then the outside “dunny” – a rudimentary hole in a wooden bench over a deep hole in the ground - is recommended. If you aren’t shy and leave the “dunny” door open you can contemplate uninterrupted views of our neighbours orchard and vines.

If you chuck a bucket of water down the hole after use you can hear the effluent draining away along a tributary of the fosse communal. Sadly this drainage system is not perfect and it’s easy to forget, or not bother, to sluice it down. After a time the chamber gets blocked up and then it is time to call “The Shit Shifter” - in verity Lissague, the sewage people from Bergerac.

Last week an old boy turned up in a tanker truck with an assortment of large gauge hoses attached, one of which he shoved down the hole in the ground. After he turned on a heavy duty pump the effluent was sucked back up into his tanker. He then opened the two concrete traps on the path outside the “dunny” and sucked out the remaining excrement from the chambers they cover.

I witnessed the job being done from, what I thought, was a safe distance. The stench was quite staggering – like a combination of rotten eggs and the entire compliment of Le Havre’s oil refineries burning at full capacity. How our shit shifter friend was able to inspect the offending drains at such close proximity was remarkable. He was quite unperturbed. After paying him for his trouble he drove off smiling with a cheerfully bid me "aurevoir".