Sunday, June 14, 2009

Red, red wine


One of the enduring activities in our village, and no doubt thousands of others throughout France, is the annual open air get together, under some disguise or other, where the villagers come out and party.

We were eating dinner outside on the kitchen terrace last night and the live entertainment, for the first of such events this year, over at the village hall about half a kilometre away, kicked off. Normally we attend these events but we have my son James staying with us at the moment and, as he doesn't eat meat, decided to give the event a miss. To the French around here, when you mention the word vegetarian, they look at you in disbelief and then say 'but he does eat chicken?'

Anyway, despite the distance, the band were very good. We listened to very good reproductions of classic 60s hits all in perfect English. We could have been at home (you were! - Ed). God knows how loud it must have been at the stage.

J may be vegetarian but he does like a drink (not so much a chip off the block, more like a drop out of the bucket - Ed) so we decided to open a box of Spanish wine that had been very kindly given to us by friends in Barcelona. I know the friend 'knows his stuff', so was looking forward to finding a little treasure trove. It was. Jan had made spaghetti putanesca so we were looking for a nice red and we found one. Star of the show was a Bodega Los Astrales 2005 from Ribera del Duero. A big, very meaty (sorry James), very well made, red, that was just excellent.

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