« Piss with fruity aromas and slight tannin | Main | I knew someone would get hauled off by the cops--but the bus driver!? »
March 08, 2006
I am a lightweight
LYON, FRANCE, 2:40AM. I am a lightweight. Whilst I was writing that last blog entry in Reims (pronounced “Rahngs”), the rest of the group was out taking more. I had already had 15 drinks that day, but several of them turned up at the bus the next morning with words such as, “I have not yet slept.” Apparently a few bottles of vodka disappeared between midnight and 7AM. It was a very rough morning for them, especially when we started drinking again shortly thereafter.
Last night was therefore a night of recovery. We joined Mr. Etienne de Montille, one of the top 10 winemakers in Burgundy, at a restaurant where topics ranged from the future of the Burgundy winery to titles of nobility. Fortunately, the wine list was “quite modest” in Mr. de Montille’s words, and after just 5 bottles of unremarkable Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, everyone got to sleep early.
Interestingly, the group got lost in the rain looking for the restaurant, so Mr. de Montille started driving around Beaune looking for us. When he found us, about a dozen in number, he ordered four of us into his Beamer and drove us to the restaurant. He then mde two more such taxi trips. When I signed up for the trip, I didn’t expect to be riding in famous winemakers BMWs through the rain in a French village.
I’ve collected a few very interesting bottles in the past few days, including an amazingly-colored 1991 Rose Champagne, a ripe and balanced 2000 Louis Jadot Premier Cru, and a nice little 1995 Chablisenne Grand Cru. They’re all lovely wines, and hopefully you will be present when they are pulled from my cellar in a few years. I’ll post reviews of the wineries at the end of the trip.
Today we visited just two wineries, but most of us managed to set new personal records with the consumption of at least 25 drinks between 9AM and 2AM. Frankly, many spat some of the wine, although it was very hard to spit such masterpieces as a 1999 Louis Jadot Grand Cru, the best Chardonnay most of us have ever had, a bottle that might cost $200 in the US. After a 5-course dinner that stretched nearly four hours (so typically French, but these long dinners are getting old), we wound up at a bar where the shots just kept coming. Someone asked the bartender if they liked having a group of 15 Americans in the bar, and he said, “Yes, if they keep ordering like this!” Our group of 15 then downed over 100 shots in two hours. Do the math, and you’ll see that some people are going to be seriously messed-up tomorrow, especially the sucker who got stuck with the thousand-dollar tab. At least life is interesting. And I am happy to report that, 25 drinks later, I am sober enough to write this blog entry at 3AM and still be coherent.
Posted by adrianjo at March 8, 2006 08:08 PM