Allô, allô, Bonjour!

This month we report on the tasting of the newest Château La Tulipe, vintage 2015, and take a look behind the scenes of Gort à la Carte where the winegrower braves a banquet of unpalatable foodstuffs.

Allez, Bon Appetit!

Invitation exclusive Summer

Harvest Chateau La Tulipe 2016

The harvest at Ilja Gort's Chateau la Tulipe is an unforgettable experience.
This is your chance to be a part of this year's Summer Harvest, the 'Vendange Vertes'.

For week 27, from July 3th till July 9th, we need 20 hard workers to give us a hand.

(Chateau la Tulipe is located between Bordeaux and St. Emilion)

cliquez ici for more info and subscription

Spring this year was reluctant to wake from her hibernation. Temperatures stayed grouchy and all plant life appeared to hold back on blooming.

But none of this matters, because whether Mother Nature spoils her or torments her, a vineyard is a beauty to behold every day of the year.

Underneath the earth spring had already been simmering away, and exactly on the 1st of April it happened:

Like newborn butterflies unfolding their wings, velvety leaves sprung from hundreds of thousands of grapevines.

All those little vineyards, each with their own unique micro-climate, have been reinstated. We harvest them individually and make sure to vinify them separately as well.

It is only after two years, just before the wine is bottled that we assemble those thirty-two different flavours and meld them into one wine that reflects the character of Château La Tulipe in that particular year.

Nine in the morning. With a fresh Café et croissant under the belt the winegrower is slurpward bound.
'Oh Lordy, son,' the grape-hustler sighs with an air of despondence, 'Do we really have to taste all those barriques today?'

And indeed we do. What is worse; this isn't even the final assembly. Today we're merely completing the monthly check where we draw some wine from each of the barrels and, together with our winemakers Bruno and Shipley, assess how the different wines are evolving.

Make sure to sniff and slurp in a deliberate manner and don't forget the obligatory pensive expressions.

At the end of the morning all the barriques have been tasted and the majority of the expelled wine has indeed landed in the bucket rather than next to it.

And, just in case you were wondering, no the contents of that bucket will NOT be poured back into the barrels.

Just as we are about to leave the wine cellar, our tongues, worked to death by those eager young wines, thick and heavy in our mouths like beached whales, the phone rings.

Slurp Chardonnay has won a silver medal! At the most important wine fair in the whole of France: the winemakers 'Concours des Oenologues Vinalies'.

Shortly after we receive the news that La Tulipe Prestige too has got her hands on a silver plaque. Bacchus be praised; all that toil and trouble in the vineyard, the endless drudgery during the harvest weeks, it has led to something after all.

At the end of the day the winegrowing family are in high spirits as they raise their glasses: 'Not half bad, Son, that plonk of ours' the winegrower grunts contentedly.

Very tasty wines made in a modern style, in the Languedoc, for a friendly price. Pure and honest wines, made of nothing else but pure, ripe Chardonnay- and Cabernetgrapes. We wanted very fruity wines, and succeeded: the aroma's burst out of the bottle.

Now available at Amazon.
Cliquez ici for the pricewinning Chardonnay and ici for the Cabernet Sauvignon to find out more.

The love of the Frenchman for everything that grazes, burrows, wriggles or scurries is not based on cuteness but on edibility.

With casual indifference those merry French devour sheep brains, pig snouts and pig trotters on a daily basis.

One of the most popular dishes in this category is the 'Andouillette', a sausage made from pork tripe; it has the scent of a rotting corpse.

Any sane human being would not venture within 30 feet of this unpalatable item. But the French love it and many restaurants sport this culinary heritage on their menu (Note the fan on the photo left. It's there for a reason).

There even are Confréries de l'Andouillette', societies with the sole purpose of organizing monthly meetings to communally enjoy these penetratingly pungent sausages.
And yet, my dear Slurpers, I ask you to consider the following: if you want to eat meat (which I would not encourage), and therefore have to butcher a living animal (which I would not encourage either), might it not indeed be better to eat that animal in its entirety, as the French do? Rather than eat only the best bits and downgrade the leftovers to cat food?

In order to determine my level of French-ness I will subject myself to the ultimate test for the TV show Gort à la Carte: am I able to withstand this murky component of Cuisine Française? Am I capable of actually eating an Andouillette?

The level of difficulty is set at peak: we head into the fields with an organic pig farmer. After hugging one of these delightfully relaxed teddy-pigs that spends his days sloshing around the place, rolling around and farting, the thought of actually eating such a convivial creature is light-years away.

But director Richard knows no mercy. 'We follow the script,' he rules as we peruse the Charcuterie on display. 'Where would you like to start: a piece of snout, a bite of ear or a trotter?'

With heartrending enthusiasm the Maître Charcutier commends his wares. 'I would recommend starting with a little bit of ear,' he concludes. 'Right after your early morning coffee that will be delicious.'

I won't yet reveal the finale, but the biggest challenge is yet to come: The Andouillette... ('Jaws' music playing...).
From the postures of the camera crew- which are reminiscent of the plaster cast statues at the Pompeii museum, we can glean that their anxiety too has reached boiling point.

To quote John Wayne: 'Some things a man has to do alone.'

You can find Château la Tulipe de la Garde Bordeaux Superieur at Sainsbury's supermarkets.
Cliquez ici for more information.

Allez, Wholeharted Santé!