The French Are Like Coconuts

Molly & Scout in their new home
 (France not the chateau).

They have a saying here in France: Americans are like peaches, and the French are like coconuts.  Meaning that Americans are super friendly and sweet, but once you get beneath the surface, they have a hard center. The French on the other hand, have an almost impenetrable exterior (i.e. difficult to get to know), but once you get through the hard and coarse shell, they have a sweet, soft interior.

The Americans we've met so far have been quite eager to become fast friends.  However since moving to France, it's been our preference to interact with non-Americans.  It could be my Peace Corps mentality, but we wanted to move to Europe so that we could learn and experience a new culture and not creating an anglo bubble in Paris.  So given that we live in a country full of coconuts, if we want to get to know the French, it's necessary to find opportunities to interact with them in their own language.

Wine-derful

At a wine tasting last Thursday, our host said that "wine is poetry in a bottle."   A good bottle of wine can evoke your senses.  It can back bring memories of laying in the grass, tip toeing through water running over a stone path in a brook, or strawberry jam at the farmer's market, and all without distractions.  It can be bold or subtle.  It demands focus. It demands your attention.

Thomas and I are by no means oenophiles, but we do like discovering new wines.  And France is a great place to do a lot of discovering (and learning).

This weekend there was a salon for independent wine makers in Paris.  Over a thousand oenologues presented their wines under one roof.  We tasted wines from Bordeaux, Avignon, Lirac, and Champagne.  The best part of today was speaking with the wine makers themselves.  Who better to tell you about the wine than those who had a hand in its production.  It was wonderful to speak with people who were proud of their work. We even met one of the founders of the salon at one of the stations selling his wines. He was a remarkable teacher (Thomas and I still have a lot to learn), which in my opinion made him a good salesman.  We almost bought a case from him.  Thomas and I had to hesitate a bit with the wine purchases.  Many of the wines we purchased were not quite ready to drink.  Before buying more of these types of wine, we would need to figure out where we would store them.  Perhaps building a wine cave is a project for another weekend.

We came home with (literally) a backpack full of wine. Since we took the train, we needed a way to bring the wine home. We thought leaving the grocery chariot at home would help keep our purchases in check.  Others brought their suitcases on rollers.  There was some serious wine purchases going on at this event.  People were stowing away wooden cases of wine in their Samsonite rolling bag.

These salons (wine and food) are definitely one thing the French know how to do well.

My favorite wine of the day.

Salon du vigneron independant.

Bordeux, Syrah, Chateau-neuf-du-pape, Sauternes, and cognac.   A fruitful Sunday.