The Wine Cellar That Isn't

On Monday I bottled a second case of wine. This time it was some Valençay rosé. I thought that while I was at it I'd share a few photos taken inside our "cellar."

Our bottle rack holds both filled and emptied bottles.

Ours cannot really be called une cave (a wine cellar), even though we keep wine there. A proper wine cellar in a house like ours would be dug below ground level with access likely by trap door and a steep stair or ladder. In fact, one of the houses we considered back in 2002 had exactly that kind of cellar. The trap door was on a closet floor, and the cellar was below grade making the temperature and humidity in there perfect for storing wine.

The bottle drying rack and pantry shelves behind.

In the house we bought, however, there is only what can be called a pantry off the utility room on the ground floor. It's located on the northwest corner of the house and has a simple sand floor. But it isn't insulated and the temperature changes with the outdoor temperature. Not ideal for long-term wine storage.

The corking machine, which is getting less use these days.

But it does function as a great pantry, and we use it to keep all manner of dry and canned goods, oils and vinegars, dog food, empty jars and other containers, and our bottling supplies. And yes, we do keep our wine in there, but it's not being stored for any significant length of time, so it's not a problem.

Bottling Wine

Ken and I have talked about this before on our blogs, but since it's a pretty routine thing around here, I thought I'd mention it again. We live in a wine producing region and we buy the vast majority of our wine locally. Most of our local producers (who are also our neighbors) sell wine en vrac (in bulk) in addition to the bottled product.

Bottling a case of Valençay vin de pays.

Needless to say, the bulk wine is more economical because we don't have to pay for bottles, corks, labels, or the labor to put it all together. And mostly it's the same wine that's in the bottles. The exceptions, of course, are any special vintages or blends and certain "signature" wines that are only sold in bottles.

We have four ten-liter jugs that the winemakers fill up directly from the barrel or tank. They use a hose that looks similar to a gas pump nozzle to fill each jug. Then we take the wine home and fill up our own bottles (that are cleaned and re-used every time, of course) and we cork 'em up and put 'em away.

Each ten-liter jug holds just over a standard case of wine; thirteen bottles and a little more. We've saved bottles from wine we bought during our first year here and use them over and over again. They get rinsed with hot water once they're empty, then they dry on a special bottle rack in the cellar until it's time to fill them again.

For a while we were buying corks at our local wine producers' supply cooperative. Corks for short-duration storage are not expensive when bought by the thousand, and we have a hand-operated corking machine that they sold us for twenty-five euros about five years ago. That all works pretty well, considering that we buy wine for current consumption and not to put away to age for many years.

Recently, however, a friend gave us a little package of re-usable plastic closures and a special corkscrew for them. It turns out that they work very well for our short-term storage needs and will nearly eliminate our need to buy corks.

I'll drink to that!

Tarte Amandine Aux Fruits

One of my readers asked for a recipe for the tarte amandine that I made for Ken's birthday. I'm only too happy to oblige. Ken found the recipe on a French recipe site, I think. The first time I made this (link) I sliced the fruit, pears in that case, and arranged them on top of the filling.

Ready to go into the oven.

The second time, I used canned peach halves (link) and pressed them directly into the filling. The third time (link), I used pears again, but pressed the unsliced halves directly into the filling. Here's the recipe:

Tarte amandine aux fruits

Pre-heat your oven to 180ºC (350ºF)
Cream together until light and fluffy:

• 100 g softened butter
• 100 g granulated sugar

Add:

• 2 lightly beaten eggs
• 100 g finely ground almonds (almond powder)
• 25 g all purpose flour, sifted
• 10 cl fruit liqueur (your choice)

Line a buttered tart pan with:

• 1 standard pie crust

Blind-bake the crust and let it cool slightly. Add the filling to the baked crust. Press into the filling:

• Canned fruit halves (peaches, pears, apricots) or fresh ripe fruit halves

Use enough fruit to fill up whatever size pan you are using. Bake for approximately 30 minutes. After the first 20 minutes, glaze the fruit with:

• apricot (or other fruit) glaze (press a few tablespoons of apricot jam through a sieve and heat in the microwave until it thickens a bit. If it's too thick, add a dash of the fruit liqueur or water).

Continue baking until done. Let cool. Serve.

The glazed and finished tart.

For a pear tart, you can use pear liqueur (poire williams). For any fruit, you can use always use kirsch (cherry liqueur).

If your fresh fruit isn't quite ripe, you could poach the halves in a bit of syrup prior to making the tart.

You can also use a sweet crust (pâte sablée) instead of a standard pie crust.

Happy Birthday To Ken

Thursday was Ken's birthday. You will know which one when you look at this photo:

Happy 60th!

The "birthday cake" is an amandine aux poires, made in a new square tart pan that Ken's mom sent. It's cool, and worked great for this pie!

The pie, minus the sparklers.

He's suffering from jet lag and a chest cold, but he's doing alright. I got the special candles and the sparklers from the supermarket. But the darned sparklers took so long to light that by the time I got the last one lit, then got the camera, the first one was done.

Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes.

More Primroses

The primevères (primroses) are starting to do their springtime thing. So I thought I'd show you some more.

The purple pimpernel?

I'm heading out today to collect Ken from the train station near Tours. If all goes well, he'll get in this afternoon and we'll head over to Vouvray to buy some wine for his birthday, which is tomorrow.

We have a special lunch planned. I'll take bets on which one of us blogs it. On second thought, perhaps not.

One Thousand Posts !

One day a couple of weeks ago I noticed on my blogger dashboard that I was getting perilously close to the one thousand mark. And today I will have put pictures and words on this site one thousand times since I started in 2005. I said to myself, self, you should do something special for that. So I prepared this very brief video to thank all of you who visit wcs: another american in france.

Now you see why I never had a career in television.

Thanks again!

Walt (the "w" in wcs).

Saturday Walt

We had the best Saturday of the year, so far. The sun was warm, there was no wind. It was t-shirt weather and it was spectacular.

Enjoying a glass of rosé in the afternoon sun.

So I spent a little time outside, in the sun, sipping wine. Callie enjoyed being outside, too. I know there's cold, wet weather coming our way, but if Saturday was a sign of things to come, I'm all for it!

Callie had a nice time outdoors, too.