19 jan

Michel de Montaigne lived in the area of Chassenat. Julie and I both enjoyed the ‘How to live’ book about Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell and decided to visit his castle, and more especially, his Tour, the tower where he hid from an atrocious mother and a bitchy wife. Women might need their own room, according to the wisdom of Virginia Woolf, a man needs his own tower.
Castle and Tower were closed. When I read the Michelin guide about the tourist attraction I had wondered why it would be closed on the 8th of january and the 7th of february, somehow missing the little stripe that connected the two dates. In general I am very happy with the laser surgery to my eyes last january. But I have lost my ability to read small print well (without glasses). In fact, this ability has improved considerable in the past year. Since the laser injuries have healed I can rad books during daylight, but as soon it’s getting darker I need glasses.
Ah well.
We took the opportunity to go and visit the winefields in the St. Emilion and Pomerol area, which were close by. It is not as beautiful as Burgundy, this side of the Bordeaux area. The hills are gentler, the fields smaller, the views less impressive. The wines are also not as expensive. I was quite surprised to see that it is possible to buy a St. Emilion Grand Cru 2009 for less than €10. Might have been a horrible year, 2009, I have no clue. Seem to remember from the good old days when I drank good wines (at other people’s houses) that I preferred the Cabernet wines of the Medoc valley, above the Merlot wines from this side of Bordeaux, but this memory might be more pretense than anything else.
St. Emilion was an excellent place to buy wine. Not to buy bread though. Julie was anxious for a pain au chocolat. On our stroll through the town we passed at least 25 wine merchants, but never found a boulangerie. Brad and wine don’t go together in this town, that’s for sure.
We drove on to Pomerol. I wanted to go and see Chateau Petrus, just because I like the name so much, but we somehow missed it. Passed Cheval Blanc though, where they are building a new big visitor centre. Not as good though as the Gehry building we visited at the Marques de Riscal estate in the Rioja. Cheval Blanc and nearby Chateau d’Yquem are owned by Bernard Arnault, a good friend of Tony Blair, whose social democratic ideals (disguised Thatcherism according to many) never prevented him from embracing luxury, and why should he.
They call them all chateaus, these wines, but the houses are much less impressive than the humble lodgings where we stay, so it didn’t take us much to leave the wine fields of St Emilion and Pomerol and head back to Chassenat.
Driving through the wine fields, we were wondering about the different grape vines. Some were thin, others thick. Young and older, ok. But some were short, only 25 cm or so, others close to 100 cm. The most puzzling was the pruning of the vines. Some of it wasn’t done, which seems sloppy, at other fields farmers were busy cutting. Sometimes one branch was left on the stem, sometimes two, sometimes the branches were left long, sometimes they were cut short. Why all these differences, it’s all Merlot, right. Very puzzling and interesting. Maybe Montaigne, whose estate still has its own wine, has something to say about. Going to look that up.