The Frugal Oenologist: Esprit de Labastide Gaillac 2008

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Esprit de Labastide Gaillac 2008

This white from the valley of the Tarn in southwestern France comes on with a flowery bouquet and has a fresh taste of apples mingled with citrus. It is what in France is called "perle", that is ever so slightly bubbly. It will go well with fish, pork or veal, but doesn't have much of a finish, so is basically uninteresting to drink by itself. $7.99.

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Some Personal Notes...

I was born and grew up in Belgium. There, as in all of the francophone world, children, as soon as they were old enough to sit up at table to have their dinners (usually at midday) with the adults, were allowed a glass of wine. The thought behind this was that they should enter their turbulent teens already accustomed to alcohol and not treat it as yet another exciting discovery, to be abused with the ungovernable energy that the hormonal storms of those years produce. By and large, this premise was a sound one. The level of alcoholism in the French-speaking countries tends to be well below that of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian ones, never mind the United States. To be sure, this datum can be challenged on a matter of definition: while there may be fewer binge drinkers who get raging drunk whenever they have access to alcohol, a goodly proportion of the working class, which habitually has a glass or two of wine with breakfast, is working on a mild buzz throughout the day. Still, the results are less deletirious: they function. At one point a Prime Minister of France, appropriately named Mendes-France, himself an anti alcohol crusader, launched an initiative to persuade the French to throw away their wine and drink milk instead. Needless to say, the project was still-born. The French consume as much wine as ever. The point I'm trying to make is that it seems to me that it is eminently possible to go through life enjoying one's wine without being seriously impaired in one's judgement or one's work level. In the old days in Europe one had the main meal of the day at noon, invariably following that up with a nap, so that when one returned to work one's mind was again clear. Nowadays dinner tends to be taken in the evenings, which means that one isn't really fit to do much serious work afterward, but I would argue, pace all you workoholics, that one's evenings should be devoted to less demanding and more congenial activities. I have enjoyed my evening wine throughout a long life, I've drunk some very good bottles and remember them fondly, and I would urge you to do the same.S

The Frugal Oenologist

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Esprit de Labastide Gaillac 2008

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