And now, Champagne

While our friend Cheryl was here in October, we drove up to Champagne for four days just to check it out. We rented a gîte in a small town called Bouzy, on the southeastern flank of the Montagne de Reims, not far from the city of Epernay. Our goal was to see what Champagne felt like and to taste a variety of wines.

Part of the town of Verzenay on the northern slopes of the Montagne de Reims.

All three of us had been to Champagne before, mostly the city of Reims, but also to Epernay. Those visits were quick overnights or drive-throughs over the years. This time we wanted to explore a little more. We arrived on a Monday afternoon and after checking in and doing a little food shopping, we made dinner accompanied by a bottle or two of the local bubbly.

The next day, we planned to drive around the base of the mountain. Well, it's not really a mountain, but a large bulge in the otherwise flat countryside of that part of the Champagne region. It's on the flanks of that mountain that you find many of the pinot noir vineyards.

This windmill was built in 1818 on a promontory above the town of Verzenay.

Pinot noir is one of the three grapes that go into a typical Champagne. The other principal grape is chardonnay, mostly grown on the hillsides south of Epernay which are called les Côtes des Blancs (the slopes of white grapes). The third grape in Champagne is pinot meunier, grown mostly in the Marne River valley west of Epernay.

Unless the label on the bottle says otherwise, Champagne is a blend of these three grapes. Also, typically, a Champagne will be blended with wine from the previous year. Winemakers do this so that the finished wine will be more or less consistent from year to year.

Some wines will be pure chardonnay; they are the blanc de blancs. Others will be made from just the red, or black, grapes; they are the blanc de noirs. Other wines will reflect an exceptional year and not be blended with last year's vintage; these are the vintage wines labelled millésime.

We tried some of each. We also tried the red still wine they make in Bouzy. We left no bottle uncorked. Ok, we did because we brought a bunch home with us. We're working on those.

Space, the final frontier

These are our voyages to a wine-making enterprise. Our continuing mission: to explore strange new reds. To seek out new whites, new sparkling sensations. To boldly drink where none of us has drunk before.

If you look into Space you can see the stars.

This is Ken and his friend from grad-school days, Bob, entering the tasting room of a local wine cooperative. The tasting room is called l'Espace. Space. The entrance is this rather dramatic opening in the cliff face.

Bob, Norma, Ken, and I had a great time tasting a variety of their wines, including some sparklers. We even took some of them home with us.

Hailing frequencies are open. Beam me up, Scotty!

Spot me

I suppose the lights have to be installed somewhere. At Chenonceau, they're installed everywhere. I've never been to the castle after dark. It closes at five o'clock in the afternoon between November and February, which is pretty much right when it gets dark. But I have seen photos of it all lit up.

You light up my life.

One way to see the lights is to walk along the river path on the left bank, which is free and doesn't close. I should plan to do that one of these days, or evenings, as it were.

A nice sit-down

This is the area of outdoor tables at the self-service food place on the castle grounds. It always looks inviting, until it fills up with people. It's not very often that I visit the castle in the height of the tourist season, so I usually see the place empty with all the umbrellas folded up as it's cold and/or raining.

Just a few folks enjoying a break and cold drink.

But this day was nice and people were enjoying sitting out and having a snack. Lunch time was over, but I can imagine that there might have been quite a crowd an hour or two earlier.

I scream, you scream

There are a couple of places to eat on the grounds of the Château de Chenonceau. One is a nice looking full-service restaurant tucked away behind the out-buildings and the other is more of a self-service place with tables inside and outside closer to the main walkways. Next to that second place is a little stand that sells ice cream cones.

What's the scoop?

The woman working the stand on this day was pretty busy. I noticed that she had a constant line of two or three people while I was wandering around.

I'll cross that bridge...

I did cross that bridge. Many times. It's one of a couple of spans across the water to get from the "mainland" out to the castle at Chenonceau. The river bank on the castle's entrance side (the right bank of the Cher) is carved into small channels, a stone dock, and a boat launch. On either side, and high above the water level, are the two signature castle gardens.

Visitors crossing a bridge on their way to the castle.

I was down by the docking area watching the fish, which were probably des brochets (pike), swimming around among the river plants when I took this picture.

The Thanksgiving meal

Many of you know that Ken and I bend tradition a bit at Thanksgiving. For nearly fifteen years now, we've been roasting a leg of lamb rather than a turkey for the day's meal. We've been in France for nine (wow!) Thanksgivings so far and our non-traditional tradition has served us well; turkeys aren't generally available here until the Christmas holiday.

The main course: roasted leg of lamb and gratin dauphinois.

This year, instead of a bone-in leg, we bought a leg that had been de-boned and rolled into a roast. We still have the bone from last year's leg in the freezer, so we knew we wouldn't miss the bone at all. And a rolled roast is much easier to cook and carve than a whole leg.

The raw rolled leg of lamb with it's chopped rosemary rub.

The entrée (in France, the entrée is the first course, what Americans often call the appetizer) was a salad of radis noir (black radish) with mimolette cheese, a hard orange cheese from the north of France. The radish is only black on the outside. I peeled it, sliced it into rounds on the mandolin, and arranged the rounds in what's called a rosace pattern on plates. I used sherry vinegar, olive oil, and salt & pepper to dress the salad along with slices of the cheese and a garnish of cilantro from the garden.

Ingredients for the entrée salad: black radish and mimolette cheese.

I got that recipe from a French cooking show several years ago and we really like it. I realized this year that we hadn't made it in a while, so we decided it would be good to do for Thursday. The original recipe calls for chervil, but we have the cilantro growing out back so we substituted. It was delicious.

This is an example of arranging slices "en rosace." You can see that the radish is white inside.

I made a rub for the lamb with fresh rosemary chopped finely with salt and pepper. Ken put a few whole garlic cloves in the roasting pan and that was it. Along with the lamb, Ken made a gratin dauphinois (what we used to call scalloped potatoes). I used the mandolin again to slice the potatoes thinly. Ken arranged them in a dish with a mixture of milk and cream that had been flavored on the stove with bay leaves, garlic, and nutmeg. That got baked in the oven until it was golden and bubbly.

The finished and dressed salad, ready to serve!

The lamb and potato dish were our main course. The lamb got slightly more done than we like, but it still had a pink center and it tasted great. We drank a bottle of Bourgueuil with the meal. It all went very well together.

Sliced and seasoned potatoes, ready for the milk and cream mixture.

Dessert was a variation on pumpkin pie. I grew the small French pumpkins called potimarrons (red kuri squash) in the garden this year. They have a very chestnut-like flavor and are delicious as a vegetable, but work great in pumpkin bread and pie recipes. I use a standard pumpkin pie recipe, but I cut down on the sugar and the spices. That lets the nutty flavor of the squash come through and we both really like that.

Pumpkin pie for dessert!

With dessert we opened a bottle of still (as opposed to bubbly) red wine from the town called Bouzy (appropriate?) in Champagne. We had brought the bottle back with us from our trip there last month. The wine is made from pinot noir and it's very light. Not excellent, but totally drinkable. The empty bottle bears witness to that.

All in all it was a great meal, and we have leftovers!