Today the Foire du Vin started at Carrefour. Every fall, the grocery stores have this wine sale (they cannot call it a sale…. the state regulates sales and they are only permitted twice a year, in July and in February). The point of the fair (foire) is to get rid of the stock to make room for the new wines. Similar to the way car dealers try to rid their lots of last year’s models this time of year.
After living here nearly a year and joining a wine tasting group I still know squat about wine. Ok, I know it is made from grapes and I know that the wines here are named by the region in which those grapes are grown, rather than by grape type like in the U.S. That ends my vast wine knowledge.
I jotted down the name of a wine we like and figured I’d buy a case of that then a couple bottles of other kinds of wine to try.
Then, I went to my least favorite place: Carrefour on Saturday afternoon. The Foire du Vin was set up right at the entrance. Stockers were busy trying to replenish the shelves. One man was reading his big thick wine guide to help decide. Others had their Foire du Vin fliers and were flipping through the pages of those. I wandered up and down the rows searching for the one wine scribbled on the piece of paper stuffed in my pocket. Not there. Somehow, I thought that the Foire du Vin would cover all the wines in the store. No.
Bill and I found the section with the Cotes du Rhone wines. We know we like those. Then Bill pretty much randomly chose three to try. Four… but the fourth he went ahead and bought a case. It wasn’t expensive, there were only three left (we figured if so many other people bought it, it had to be decent) and if we hate it, we’ll make it the wine we take to other people’s houses. Hey, maybe they’ll like it.
Now the real test… the taste test.