Reflections: What my favorite French wine is and why – Part 6

Summer sunshine across a lawn of green, where apples are being harvested bring back those memories of a wine that not only touches the taste-buds, but takes me to a time and place in my past where life was the best it could be. Sometimes, it takes an aroma to bring back memories, though for me, those memories of first days in a foreign country are always made fresh and alive with a wine called Coteaux du Layon.

When you live in a country like France, wine plays a very important part in social interaction, and this win was introduced to me a long time ago, by a lady whose roots lay in the beautiful area of the Loire Valley. She married a Breton and moved away, though her heart stayed with her homeland while embracing her newfound home. She recalled her childhood, the rivers and rolling hills that hid the secret of each chateau behind a backdrop of trees and greenery, hills and refreshing rivers.

Though we had childhoods in different eras, what struck me as a theme that brought us together as people of similar taste was that we had both experienced a country upbringing, and as I watched her bending down to pick up that crop of apples at the age of 84, I couldn’t help but admire her endurance and the almost innocent laughter that accompanied her stories of a childhood much like my own.

The Loire Valley is an area in central France, and I had never tried this wine before, offered by a friend in exchange for applies from my apple trees. Here, the climate is warmer than in the area where I chose to live, and it is the sunshine that ripens the grapes, and the quality of the soil that the Loire Valley offers that makes the wine taste so pleasant.

The taste is dry though not as dry as other wines of the Loire Valley Region and borders on the sweet. It’s pleasant taste was refreshing served cooled by the waters of the garden well, and as they lowered the bottle into it’s waters before the harvest of applies, I wondered why, though was delighted to find that this was always the given method of cooling before refrigerators even existed.

When you compare this with Chardonnay and the more popular wines, it’s surprising that other countries have not exploited the supply more, since it leaves a pleasant after taste like no other wine I have ever tried.

Sacks of apples, all piled up on the back of the tractor in a box, the wine was retrieved and although my schoolgirl french struggled with the unfamiliar French accent, what struck me the most was that the communication between us had no limits simply because it was a sharing experience, and the language of sharing is universal.

Fifteen years on, I still buy this wine, and though Alice is dead and the apple trees a distant memory, what makes it so special is that if I close my eyes and take a taste, it doesn’t just give me that light headed feeling that others do. From the aroma that reaches my nostrils upon taking out that cork, and the very first taste of my favorite wine, those days that have gone come fleeting back in a way that makes them eternal.

Sante !