Mid-summer status report, plans

Yesterday the high temperature was 67ºF. The day before, it had been 87ºF. We kept the house closed up all day yesterday — not to keep the hot air out, but to keep the warm air in. Such is life in Saint-Aignan in July.

The temperature when I got up this morning was 11ºC — just 52ºF! The house is quickly cooling down.

Apricots I picked a couple of days ago
out on the edge of the vineyard

Not only was it cooler yesterday, but rain poured down in squalls off and on all day. That was good — we needed the rain, and the garden will be the better for it. Walt stuck a stake in the ground next to the corn stalk that blew over in Thursday night's wind and tied it up. Maybe it will survive.

Grape leaves and grapes

Most of the 10 or so corn (maize) plants we planted in the garden now sport tassels, which means we might end up getting a few ears of sweet corn in a while. Sweet corn is something we can't buy at the markets or supermarkets here in Saint-Aignan. And it's something we would enjoy eating.

Tomatoes continue to ripen. This cooler weather will slow them down, but hey, it's not even July 20 yet. We have August and September to look forward to.

It has been very busy here for more than a month now. CHM came to visit around June 10. We did quite a bit of sight-seeing together. Soon after he returned to Paris, friends of a good friend in California came to visit for 24 hours and we drove all around the region with them to see some of the major landmarks.

Every time we have visitors, we feel obligated to get out the vacuum cleaner and the feather duster to make the house presentable. In other words, we do housework we might not do otherwise. Having visitors motivates us to do "spring cleaning."

A day or two later — a week ago — a old friend and a new friend from Normandy arrived. We had three evening meals here at the house, and we spent one evening in Saint-Aignan eating pizza at a sidewalk café and one day driving over to Amboise, Vouvray, and Château-Renault. Before they arrived, the house needed cleaning again, especially the bathroom and kitchen. Meals had to be planned and prepared. Busy, busy, busy. But it was fun.

Now we have to get going on some summertime home- improvement and maintenance projects. There are drains to be snaked out, exterior walls to be cleaned with bleach and acid, and deck edges and bottoms to be scraped, sanded, and maybe repainted. There is firewood for the winter to be cut, and there's a very long, wide, and high hedge due for its annual trimming. There are ronces — wild blackberry brambles — to be cut back, before they take over the whole property. There's a half-dead apple tree that needs to be cut down and then cut up for firewood.

Best of all, though, it looks like there will be many tomatoes and zucchini, and probably some eggplants, bell peppers, beans, and ears of corn to be harvested. These are our rewards. There are so many apples that I'm sure I will be making a couple of big batches of apple jelly and several batches of applesauce too. I'm not even mentioning the pears and plums we are likely to have, and that will need to be dealt with if we are to benefit from them.

Apples are definitely ripening.

Let's hope the weather goes back to being warm and fairly dry. And that such weather might continue into October.

Another summer is speeding by. It's already been nearly a month since the solstice — the longest day of the year. We can now feel the hours of daylight diminishing. However, 2009 is turning out to be a very good year.

Artichokes and corn

The artichoke flower is continuing to open up. I took pictures of it yesterday and noticed that a lot of bees were "working" on it.

The artichoke flower buzzing with bees

Then I decided to take a movie:

Walt mentioned last night's brief blast of strong wind on his blog. It blew over one of our stalks of corn. But only one. And it didn't blow down any of the sunflowers.

One cornstalk victim of the wind

One tomato blew over too. Since we have 37 tomato plants growing out there, one less, if it doesn't survive, won't matter too much.

The Aubert winery in Vouvray

My Loire Valley experience started in Vouvray, a wine village just 5 mi. (8 or 9 km) east of the center of Tours on the north bank of the Loire River. If we hadn't decided, almost on the spur of the moment, to spend a vacation week in a gîte rural in Vouvray in October 2000, we would never be living in Saint-Aignan right now. Vouvray is a 45-minute drive from our house.

Vouvray still wines run the gamut from very dry to very sweet (called moelleux, or "mellow", in French), depending on the vintage (i.e., the year) and the vinification method used. Vouvray is also known for good effervescent wines, some made by a old local method that produces fewer bubbles (the wines are pétillants, or semi-sparkling), and others made by the so-called Methode Traditionelle to produce Champagne-style wines (fully sparkling).

Barrels of Vouvray white wines in the Aubert wine cave

The one thing that all Vouvray wines — dry or sweet, still or sparkling — have in common is that they are made exclusively with the juice of a single grape variety, which is the Chenin Blanc. No other grape is authorized by the A.O.C. authority that defines the criteria for Vouvray wine-making and labeling.

Looking back into the Aubert cave, you see walls lined
with racks holding hundreds of bottles of white wine.

The still "sweet" wines of Vouvray — either demi-sec (less-sweet wines to drink as an apéritif or with dinner) or moelleux (very mellow dessert wines) — can age for quite a few years in the bottle. The sparking wines — both styles — are competing with Champagne these days, because Champagne wines have become so expensive. Champagne is made with entirely different grapes, not with Chenin Blanc.

A view from the cellar looking out toward the sales room and daylight.
That's Walt paying for our 12 bottles of Aubert's Vouvray wine.

For people like me, Vouvray is a better choice than most Champagne. The standard Champagne is made from what is called an "assemblage" — a technical term for what we might call a "blend" — of the juices of three grape varieties, which are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. In my case, I find that assemblage sparkling wines like Champagne tend to give me a headache, ruining the pleasure of drinking them.

All those bottles...

Vouvray sparkling wines, made from juice from a single grape, the Chenin Blanc — which is also known locally as Pineau de la Loire — don't have that same negative effect on me. That said, it is also possible to get Champagnes that are made with a single grape variety, the Chardonnay. To me, the Champagnes called « pur chardonnay » are easier on the brain, like the Vouvrays. They are also very easy on the palate.

This is barrel no. 82 — that's not the vintage. I didn't ask
how you decipher the codes on the front of the barrel.

The winery we like to go to for our Vouvray wines is called Jean-Claude et Didier Aubert Viticulteurs and is located in the Vallée Coquette on the western side of the village of Vouvray. The pictures in this topic are ones I took in the Aubert wine "cave" yesterday. In the past, I've posted other pictures of the Aubert winery (see December 2005), from the outside.

Wines are sold in 6-bottle cases in the Loire Valley.
These are stacked up in the front at Aubert's cave.

Prices chez Aubert are very reasonable. Yesterday we bought 6 bottles of Méthode Traditionnelle Brut (the dry sparkling) for 30 euros (at current rates, about $42.00) and 6 bottles of 2008 Demi-Sec (the semi-sweet wine that is good with apéritif foods or dinner) for the same price. Five euros a bottle ($7.00) is inexpensive, given the quality of the wines. We've tried Vouvrays from other producers that sell at significantly higher prices, but we haven't found them to be consistently better than Aubert's wines.

In the past, I've also posted more general topics about Vouvray and neighboring Montlouis and the wines made in both villages, for example in November 2008 and December 2008. Vouvray is a picturesque but not a drop-dead beautiful village. The wines, though, can be stunning.

Pizza in a café on Bastille Day

Busy day today. Our Normandy friends are still here. This morning we're heading over to Vouvray to buy some wine over there (Chenin Blanc wines, sweet or dry, still or sparkling — some of the best white wines made in France). Vouvray is a good 45-minute drive northwest from Saint-Aignan.

Then we're going to lunch in a restaurant in Montlouis, the village on the other side of the Loire River from Vouvray. We've never tried this restaurant, Les Terrasses, before. It isn't in the guidebooks, and I can't find any customer reviews on the Internet. The only way to find out if it's good is to throw caution to the wind and go try it. Since we all have much experience with little French restaurants, I'm sure we'll find something good on the menu.

Looks like there'll be a lot of wild blackberries this year.

Last night we went down to Saint-Aignan at dinnertime. The two visitors from Normandy wanted to eat dinner, but Walt and I didn't. We went to a café and ordered glasses of white wine — a Sauvignon Blanc from the Quincy wine area, 50 km east of Saint-Aignan. We asked if the café was serving sandwiches or salads, but it wasn't.

These delicate little mushrooms are blooming
all around the vineyard right now.

What if we went and got something from a bakery or other shop and brought it to the table here to eat it? Would that be okay? Certainly, said the young woman who was waiting on us, and who turned out to be, with her Norman (!) husband, the owner of the place. Two of us walked around the corner to the pizzeria on the market square in Saint-Aignan and ordered a pizza.

This artichoke is about to turn into a flower
and is looking positively solar.

I know the people who run the pizzeria — my friend was impressed that I and the woman who runs it did French cheek-kisses in greeting — and I think that helped us get a pizza really fast. They gave us one that was just coming out of the oven. Some other customer would have to wait. Within five minutes, we were back at the café.

The grapes are plumping up nicely.

The café owner brought us a knife, we ordered second glasses of the Quincy wine, and we carved up the pizza and ate it with our fingers. The café was full of people, mostly young men, it seemed, and it was buzzing with activity. It was Bastille Day, and fireworks were scheduled in Saint-Aignan at midnight. The two café owners were also in the process closing the place up, putting chairs up on the table inside so they could mop the floor, and gradually taking away the outside chairs and tables too. We stayed about an hour, and we were about the last people to leave.

So many fruit trees, including several pear trees
nearby, are just loaded down with fruit.

During our improvised meal, the Norman owner, probably about 40 years old, came over and talked to our Normandy friends. He grew up in Le Havre, and the father of one of our friends was also born in Le Havre. They had a good time talking about Normandy, and I could hear their Normandy accents kick in.

It was all a lot of fun and Walt took a lot of pictures. I think he'll be posting them over the next few days and weeks. I forgot my camera. We got home at about 9:30. Okay, it's time for us to hit the road for another whirlwind day.