Really knowing about wine

I recently stayed in a place in the south of France, a tiny village with 4 bakeries and three bars - typically French! Now, J and I made friends with a lady, an ex-pat who sadly lost her husband several years ago, who has built on the work she and her husband did and now has a thriving business.

One day she was talking about her husband and told us he used to work for the BBC ordering and preparing food for the TV programmes. Suddenly a connection was made in my head! David, who I have blogged about before, an old man who goes to Japanese class with me, used to work for the BBC ordering wine for the TV programmes! I asked her if she remembered David and she did! Especially that David didn't get on with her husband (which clinched it with me because that sounds so like David to take a dislike to someone for seemingly no reason!)

After some interesting conversation about her husband's work and David she disappeared out of the room and returned with a bottle of "WHITE" wine and offered it as a gift to take back to David! I enjoy wine, and in my experience anyone who knows a little about wine will say that red wine is the best and they never touch white!

So, I visited David a few days ago and offered him my bottle of red Madiran wine that I had saved for him. He was pretty pleased and said thank you. I expected no more. Then I went into the story about the lady I had met in France and produced the bottle from a (french) bag a little reluctantly...

His face brightened immediately and he announced to me, barely looking at the label "Ah! A bottle of Pacherenc!". This took me by surprise and he immediately went into anecdotes about the wines of the region, the history of the wine, and stories of his travels to the area! We opened the bottle and really enjoyed it together. Apparently, the wine can vary and this one was fairly sweet (but imo dry at the same time) and a deep yellow in colour.

I'm not sure if it is the connection that I made and the anecdotes, or whether on its own it is a marvelous wine. I have never celebrated a white wine so much as that day!

The two lessons I have learnt here are: never judge a wine by its label and wine connoisseurs enjoy good white wines as well as red wines.