The Trip To Loire Begins

 

I am headed to the Loire.  I’ve never been, and when an opportunity to go to some weird ass chenin blanc conference came up, I figured “why not?”.  I have traveled to Paris enough times that I now have a basic gameplan for when I arrive.  The trip there is always roughly the same.  I sit left aisle on the long haul flight, almost always in some sort of preferred economy or whatever they call the class seat just above “packed in like cattle” in the rear of the plane.  This provides room for my right elbow to slightly extend so I can write notes while I am working + unfettered access to the men’s room if needed.  The downside to this seat selection is the possibility of having a flight attendant with a big ass who will whack my shoulder each time she goes up and down the aisle.  My experience is that this is less likely on international flights as these are long term career employees that get the plum assignments whereas if you’re going CLE>Raleigh, you might want to consider shoulder pads.  I have a firm belief that just as passenger’s luggage must fit in that sizing box before coming on the plane, all airline employees must be able to walk through a hallway sized like the aisle with average sized men sitting in C and D.  It’s not discrimination if you eat yourself out of the gig.  It’s strictly functional.  Fight me.

I land around 9am which sorta sucks because you’re thrust into rush hour.  The easiest option is to take a train into the city.  This being France, there was some fucked up construction going on which would have required numerous train changes that made no sense.  Normally I would have just done it, but my brain isn’t firing very well as I never sleep on these overnight flights.  I would compare trying to sleep in economy to be like trying to sleep on a dining room chair with an annoying stranger four inches to your left.  I don’t know how people can do it.  It’s a gift.  This leads me to getting jacked around by African Uber drivers that accept my ride and drop me when they see I’m going to Saint-Germain in the city.  I just bite the bullet and pay for a fixed price cab.  I’m a man of means dammit, and being dropped off at the hotel without thinking about anything else is a luxury I’m willing to pay for at this moment.

The only thing I can do now is stay awake.  It is imperative to get my body on local time.  The downside is I left the house yesterday around lunchtime and now it’s lunchtime somewhere else after I stepped out of the magic silver tube that is international air travel.  If I can offer some sage advice, NEVER eat the microwaved breakfast sandwich on the plane even though you are tired and bored.  You’ll only get horrible gas and wish you’d have waited to eat when you are presented with options at your end destination.  I decide to employ my tried and true “action plan” upon European arrival.  This is as follows:

• Take a brief 30 minute nap after I get to the room.  This somehow fools my body and allows me to function.

• Shower to “begin” my new day

• Walk around.  Anywhere.  Just start moving and keep moving until a reasonable time to sleep.

• Stop for drinks and engage with locals.  See what’s doing.

My travels yesterday included a conversation with a young guy from Rome that works at a small Italian market that makes absolutely killer panini.  He moved to Paris for a girl, they broke up, and now he’s standing there talking shit with some American dude.  After that I went to the Burgundy bar I always hit.  The conditions were what the local weather service was calling “chaud comme de la merde » or « Hot as fuck ».  That led me to pounding down a very good quality Alsace blanc de blanc cremant  and a Macon Village from Bret Brothers.  I then walked around forever looking at various old prints and posters in little boutique shops as part of my neverending quest to find antique wine advertising posters.

I started to run out of steam around 7p.  This is a critical juncture.  Do I really want to sit down to a long meal somewhere at 8p?  I decide the move is to knock back a couple glasses of wine and crash out around 9p.  I stopped at a new wine bar that was two buildings down from my hotel.  I was the only person at the place and two guys in their mid twenties enthusiastically greeted me.  One of the problems of going to these types of joints is that the help is very eager to educate you on the products, but then one finds oneself faced with a difficult choice.  A) Smile and nod along pleasantly as they tell you “champagne technically is only made in the Champagne region”.  B) Walk in as Mr. Big Balls and give a variation of “Do you know who I think I am?” to stop that stuff in its tracks.  C) The intermediate approach of saying “I’m in the trade” and hope they understand you mean “talk to me like we are co-workers”.  I am happy to talk intermediate wine geek talk because, let’s face it, almost no one wants to get in the weeds with technical shit.  

I try and do that move where you note something on the wine that’s presented that nobody should know, like how the closure impacted it or maybe the use of lees or something like that hoping it’s then evident we can fucking nerd out.  It took a minute, but then after I told him I was going to the Loire to a dorky chenin blanc conference, the one guy sort of got it.  That’s when he poured me little samples and asked me if I could identify it.  Those guys thought I was a fucking warlock or something as I clipped though 5 of 6.  Between you and me, it wasn’t that hard compared to what I had been training for over the last few years.  They had a wine bar that was 100% French, BTG pours at about $12 and the guys buying the wines were in their mid-20s in Paris.  Anything they poured me was going to lean natty and because of the price constraints, I knew there was an 80% chance we’d be in the Southern Rhone, Loire or Beaujolais with each wine.  I rattled off a muscadet, Ventoux, natty St Emilion, Grenache Blanc/Rousanne blend, and a Cab Franc from Saumur (got lucky on that village call).  I missed some weird Vin de France blend thing from a region I never heard of near Savoy.  No shame there. 

Sufficiently oiled up, I crashed around 900p knowing I would wake up in the middle of the night.  I did a classic 9p-1a, awake for two hours reading sports news, 3a-8a combo sleep.  This is not what the doctor would suggest as ideal, but I have to take what I can get.  I woke up in the morning and jumped on the TGV to Angers ready to see WTF is going on in the Loire.  Let’s go.