It’s my 9th year volunteering and I still love interacting with the winemakers (except for that one ass who yelled at me).
Another Divinum in the books
Tag: wine
The NR Wine Club is serious work with serious people
Holiday project
Just like the tiled table project at Christmas, this holiday break saw is take on another DIY project.
I got my grubby hands on an old wine barrel from Cave du Bon (free with a wine purchase) so we spent some time sanding it, then trying to find a jigsaw (only to find out that my jigsaw had been sitting in Colin’s garage for the last 2 years) then fighting a wonky charger that would cut out because of the crazy heatwave, then varnishing it and filling it with the hundreds of wine corks we’ve been collecting since covid (just shy of 900 as time of writing).
We’re also making a lamp out of a Jeroboam that I got from Bolle. Just need to fill it with gravel to weigh it down and then finish up with glueing the bulb holder.
Wine Time
[gallery] Piedmont wine weekend
This year’s wine trip started under less than fully auspicious circumstances. I had a bout of food poisoning earlier in the week and my guts and kidneys were giving me grief. I hoped I wouldn’t need to go to the doctors while I was there but I was determined to not let it be a thing until it really needed to be a thing. Thankfully it never became a thing. Other things thinged… For one thing, the weather was HOT and stayed that way all weekend. At times, it was too hot and I was a giant, sweaty mess.
Lunch at Osteria dei Catari in Montforte d’Alba was really good. The food was nice, if a bit bougie for Italy, but super tasty and catered to my allergies. In the afternoon, we had our first tasting at Sòt. That was interesting. While the family has been tending vines for generations, the current owner is the first one to start making his own wine after getting a degree in oenology. It’s still a young business, but it’s still grown from 5K to 70K bottles/year production. The wines need some… refinement, but they were perfectly acceptable. And they had two lovely dogs that had grown fat accepting bits of grissini from the tourists :)
Getting to the hotel, the AC in our room didn’t work. We tried to get it sorted out before dinner and the hotel said they’d look into it. Dinner was an unmitigated disaster. Bad service and shit food. Seriously shit. Worst-ever-meal-in-Italy level shit. Initially, we had menu choices. Then, they said that we had to pick one menu for everyone. Then, the restaurant chose the menu for us. Most people got out-of-a-frozen-packet spinach and ricotta ravioli. I got plain noodles with butter and a sage leaf. Instead of slow-cooked veal, we got scorched-earth overcooked trout (!?!?). I don’t even remember was desert was, but it was also shit. Service was so bad. They didn’t care. I asked for pepper when the pepper mill was empty and I got a couple of packets of ground pepper. In the end, we cut the meal as short as we could and went to bed. Or tried to. The AC in our (triple-occupancy) room was still not working. After an hour of back-and-forth with the front desk, some guys from maintenance, and more admin people, they were still hemming and hawing about not being to give us other rooms (there was only 1 triple room and it was useless) until they could clear it with the manager (not on site). By this point, it was almost midnight. We’d been up since 4am. We were hot and tired and tempers were fraying. They finally gave us rooms (though mine hadn’t been properly cleaned).
After a bit of a disappointing breakfast, we had a free morning in Alba, where we perambulated in search of leather bags, truffles, hazelnuts and bread & tomatoes before going to the first of our two tastings. Mascarello was a blast. Turns out they regularly do deliveries to Lausanne, so hopefully they’ll come over to organize a tasting at NR next year. We met the namesake of a wine I bought a case of. We had a blast and left in very good spirits. The next tasting, Marrone, had a bit of a sour note when the host tried to be a bit too informal in his presentation style and rubbed some people the wrong way and voices got raised. It was a shame, because the wine was good, the nibbles were very nice, but it sort of spoiled the mood. Dinner that evening at Osteria Murivecci turned that completely around. It was everything that the previous dinner was not: made with love, served with passion and generosity, and it was one of the high points of the trip.
The following – and last – day, we had two tastings. Castello di Neive had a gorgeous view and surroundings, and the wines were really nice. Francone was a gem. They’d opened just for us that they – they’re normally closed on sundays – and the hostess was enthousiastic about all the innovations the winemakers are trying to do, while staying faithful to local traditions. Then, it was time to head home.
Oeno trip to Beaune
À group of wine club nutters decided to drive 6h to and from Burgundy today to visit two caves, Patriarche Joseph Drouhin. Patriarche is one of the biggest caves in Beaune, built under an old convent, with 100K+ bottles stacked in and between multiple cellars connected by kilometers of tunnels under the city.
Drouhin is theoOldest cave in Beaune. The original building dates from the 1300s and some of the cellars have stonework showing they were part of the original Roman walls of the city. They uncovered a goethic stone from the 1500s when they were doing some excavation work and the press dates from the 1600s.
Another year, another Divinum
Another Divinum is in the books. 5 days of 15K steps. Hundreds of crates of glasses schlepped. I still love it. It’s my 8th (?) year volunteering, and by this point, I know most of the regular winemakers by face, and a few by name. They seem to remember me as well, as the thumbs-up gesture remains a constant to say “we’re all good for glasses”.
I would like to think I do a good job. I’ve seen people just take off their volunteer t-shirts, park their carts somewhere, and spend most of their time drinking at stands. I’ve heard stand owners complain about the lack of glasses, but they never seem to do that while I’m around – mostly because I make it a point to individually ask them if they’re ok, and not just walk around pushing a cart and hoping to be called when needed. I’ve been told by other volunteers “oh, I’ve been down that aisle, nobody wanted glasses” and yet still managed to swap a full cart of clean glasses for dirty ones before reaching halfway down a “done” aisle.
On Monday night, during the manic glass collection rush, I was maneuvering two carts – 12 crates – while the only other person helping me was managing 4 crates in one go (and to be clear, I once managed 9 crates on one cart). It may seem like I’m bragging, and maybe I am a bit, but I’m also very efficient and diligent about doing a good job – and I think the winemakers appreciate and recognize that. Case and point – this year, the usual big personality guy who would nab bottles for the dishwashing crew wasn’t there and no one else was stepping up. So I did -and I managed to score half a dozen bottles, if not more. You’re welcome for your Rose, you lovely mad Ukranian lady :)
We always make a point, Katy and I, to visit and support our favourites – most of whom are always telling me to stop and have a glass of something while I’m walking with a stack of glasses. There were a few new and interesting things this year, and I can’t wait until next year now.
2024 Nuit des epouvantails
It is said that in the year 1387, scarecrows came to life in the Morgian countryside, driven by a mysterious force. In a threatening mood, they made an unbearable noise, tormented the wine-growing populations and prevented anyone who wanted to go and harvest ripe grapes from leaving their homes. We seem to remember that these acts of fright were the consequence of a commitment not kept by the winegrowers; they had in fact promised to bring the count a bushel of their finest grapes, in exchange for the good advice given for the protection of the vines.
Wine club activities
July 17 – BBQ & Raclette
August 8 – Wine & Boat
[gallery] Porto wine weekend, June 2024
This year, the Nestle wine club chose Porto as its destination for the wine trip, and this weekend was the culmination of months of planning.
I left on Thursday – travel plans were up to individual participants – and I arrived in Porto in the afternoon after a fairly straightforward trip. Dinner plans were a bit convoluted after lots of last-minute changes, including Markus and I getting into the wrong Uber to get into Porto… In the end, Markus, Grietje and I found a little hole in the wall restaurant and we had a nice dinner. I realized that I’d really need to be careful about my allergies, as even after letting the server know I was allergic to garlic, my plate of olives were covered in it. Still, no harm done and we had a nice meal. As we were walking back to the hotel, we noticed that Porto doesn’t have pigeons in the parks and streets, it has seagulls!
Friday morning was a free period, as we’d agreed that planned activities would start in the afternoon, when everyone should have arrived. I walked around the old town, saw the Chapel of Souls, the Church of Saint Ildefonso, Porto Cathedral, then crossed the Luis 1 bridge over the Douro river into Vila Nova de Gaia to go scope out all of the Porto warehouses. I visited Kopke on my own, Sandeman with Patrick and Denise, and then we met everyone to visit Ramos Pinto and Corvos. After the last tasting, we had dinner reservations in a restaurant in the Bolhao market. Although there was a miscommunication of my allergies (you’re only allergic to bug chunks of garlic, right?), dinner was sorted out and was quite (!) filling and tasty. After dinner, I was dragged out to find a cocktail bar that could accommodate a group of our size – easier said than done. In the end, we found the bar attached to a 5* hotel, that had the advantage of being almost empty, snazzy, and where we could hear ourselves talk. One thing that really, really shocked me about Porto is the number of times I got accosted in the street to buy drugs (cocaina! hashish! marijuana!).
Saturday started out with a bit of drama, when our coach went to the wrong hotel and the driver waited until the dispatch office opened to get confirmation – but the confirmation was still the wrong address. He didn’t speak English, no one spoke Portuguese, but we managed to get the point across using broken Spanish :) We got it sorted out, but left an hour later than expected. We were worried that this would have a knock-on effect with all of the other visits, but our buffers managed to prevent this in the end. The driver also had the wrong stops programmed, but we got that sorted out.
First stop was Aveleda, which was a beautiful estate that produced vinho verde. The family that owns the estate is, in a word, LOADED. This is one of several domains the family owns – they have several. They own a zoo. The property is huge, boasts several beautifully manicured gardens, houses, cottages, nationally registered historical monuments, a goat tower, and a chateau. It’s also their weekend estate… The wine was also really nice! After that, we were on our way to the Douro valley – about an hour away on the motorway.
Getting there went fine, until we starting going down the twisty goat passes to get to Nova. At one point, there was about an inch of clearance between a stone wall, a house and the coach mirrors. The view, once we got there, was superb. We also got lucky with the weather, as it was supposed to rain, but it was a really nice day. Nova gave us a tour of the biggest privately owned collection of historical wine making artefacts in Portugal, then we had a tapas buffet while we had the wine tasting.
The final stop of the day was Tedo. Personally, I think it was the best stop of the day. The ambiance when we got there was festive, as they had singers and accordions playing outside. In a slight miscalculation on my part, the meat and cheese boards were probably too much, esp considering that we’d just left the previous meal only 40 minutes before, but the food and the wine were very good, and they treated us to a couple of wines that weren’t actually included in our reserved tasting.
We headed back to Porto with full bellies and people nodded off a bit in the bus. We had originally planned to have some downtime before dinner, but that didn’t happen because of traffic so we went straight to dinner, which was very nice but in a room that was waaaay too hot and stuffy. I begged off drinks that night and went to the hotel to have a cool shower before bed.
Sunday was a relaxing day. We were back in Vina Nova de Gaia, where we had a 6-bridge boat cruise on the Douro and then a cocktail making workshop at Cruz. Rule of thumb: white port + ginger + rosemary + ginger ale is nice. Rose port + orange + mint + tonic is nicer. That was the last planned activity before people went their separate ways. I had a few things I wanted to do but because of timing, I could only go visit Ferreira before heading to the airport.
One of the things that was really good about this trip is that each visit was somewhat different. Aveleda was vinho verde and the estate was magnificent. Nova was one of the oldest quintas, but completely modernized its production methods when they switched from Porto to DOC wines. Tedo is remains a very small quinta that still does traditional foot stomping in a lagar. Ramos Pinto, focused on the business and marketing decisions of its founder. Corvos is also a very small and traditional and boutique quinta that has its own spin on tawny blending (where in contrast to standard labeling, where the bottle age is an average or all ports within the blend, all the ports within a Corvos blend are _at least_ the age on the bottle). Sandeman and Ferreira are f’n monsters that product 20M+ bottles a year, but their cellars are also magnificent and HUGE! Ferreira had a wooden vat that could store 72K liters at once. Madness.
My flight was scheduled to leave at 19:30 but because of torrential weather in Geneva, the incoming flight was delayed. The flight before mine cooled its heels on the tarmac for about 1.5h before finally being able to leave – well after the time I’d already arrived at the airport. The flight was getting progressively more and more delayed. At some point, after the latest round of easyjet roulette, I decided to book a hotel room near the airport just in case I got stranded. It was 65 euro that I ate in the end, but like what happened with the train/ferry at Calais, if I hadn’t done it, things would have gone badly. At one point our arrival to Geneva was forecast to be at 2am – which would have been fun because Geneva airport has to close between 00:30 and 05:00 because of noise levels. Had that happened, we would have been diverted to Lyon or somewhere as equally inconvenient. Given the heat, noise, stress, booze and complete lack of information at airports these days, I’m always amazed that more people don’t end up going postal. I’ve only really seen that happen once, in Ottawa, a long time ago. In the end, we ended up leaving at around 22:00 and landed at around 00:30. Katy was there to pick us up – I was travelling back with someone from the group.
All pictures here: porto_jun_2024