Menus and wine labels

 One of the things we did over the weekend, when our friend Peter Hertzmann was visiting, was to go have lunch over at the restaurant called La Villa in Montrichard. It was our third visit to the restaurant this year.

The menu is on the left. Besides the œuf en meurette (poached eggs in a red wine sauce), the other first courses were snails (the cassolette is the dish the snails are cooked and served in) and a "roasted" goat cheese (it's not la chèvre or goat that's roasted, but le fromage de chèvre — you can tell because the word is rôti and not the grammatically feminine form rôtie).

The main courses were a Guinea-hen (pintade) breast (suprême), a lamb "mouse" (the souris or "mouse" is the shank end of the leg of lamb, which is slow-cooked and tender when served), or a seafood on a skewer ("skewer of the sea").

The desserts were an upside-down apple pie (tarte Tatin is a local invention), the daily special dessert, a chocolate cake, the cheese plate, or a parfait. (We didn't have dessert.) The price of the menu was 26.90 €, or about $30 U.S.

The daily specials were listed on a separate board. They were, in order, braised mussels served with French fries (about $15), a sautée of shrimp with pesto (about $14), a grilled turbot filet (about $25), and the Jean-Luc burger (about $20), which included a slice of foie gras (duck liver) and house-made French fries.

We had a light lunch. Peter had the foie gras burger, and Walt and I both had mussels and French fries. Peter said the burger was not really made with ground beef, but was more like a steak sandwich. It was cooked rare. The mussels were tiny and tender-sweet, cooked in white wine with onions and herbs. The fries were good but not too crispy.

To wash it all down, we ordered and enjoyed a bottle of chilled rosé wine that was made by Vincent Roussely in the village called Angé, not more than five miles from Montrichard, and about five miles from our house. We've been to Vincent's winery , Le Clos Roussely, several times now. His wines are organic.

This wine has a cute name that is an elaborate pun. Temps Danse means either "weather" or "time" (le temps means both in French) "dances". Normally in French, nouns are preceded by articles (le, la, les, de la, du, or des, depending on the gender and number of the noun), but here the article is dropped. When you pronounce Temps Danse, what you hear is the word tendance, or "tendency", which in French means "trendy" or "currently popular" or "stylish" — almost "faddish".

The label on the back of the wine bottle explains that the wine is made out of grapes from old Pineau d'Aunis and Cabernet Franc vines. In French it says that the wine tastes of red currants and spices.

The English you see on the label is not exactly a translation of the French. It explains that the Pineau d'Aunis grape is an "original" grape variety, but I'm not sure what that means. The word original in French can mean "unusual", "rare", or "special", or even "weird" or "bizarre". The Pineau d'Aunis is a local grape that you don't find in other regions — sort of an "heirloom" grape. You can read the rest of the English...

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