Grand Tasting

We traveled to Paris to participate at the Grand Tasting organized by Bettane & Desseauve in the Carousel du Louvre. A lot of people attended except on Friday morning. It is true that this year our table was a bit out of the way, at least we had more space. It’s not easy to know what a good location is in a trade show like this one or Vinexpo. Should we aim for a lot of people or only to those who seek us?

Our team of Terre de Lisse, including Pressac, Faugères, Rol Valentin, Fleur Cardinale and Valandraud has since added Sansonnet and properties in Pomerol or Castillon from Faugères and Rol Valentin. For my part, we poured Fleur Cardinale 2008, Sansonnet 2008, Bad Boy 2009 and 2009 Valandraud red and white.

We ran out of bottles of Valandraud and should have had 14 or 15 bottles, while 10 bottles where sufficient for the other wines?

It was also an opportunity to meet friends, colleagues, Italian, French or from other countries as well as direct and private clients or customers of our cutomers restaurant or wine shops. This year, our booth was tended by David, Didier, Murielle and I for our wines, Marie Bénédicte and Christophe for Sansonnet and Matthieu for Fleur Cardinale. I had no time to attend any Master Classes but they were packed and had high profile guests. We had a nice meal at the Brasserie Ruc opposite the Carrousel du Louvre, with its beautiful setting and attentive service, and we were fortunate to find a good 2009 Réserve Perrin at a decent price for this kind of place.

For a long time, we wanted to see Pierre Arditi in the theater, and we finally did it. This play performed in the Théatre Montparnasse with three other actors will remain as one of this year’s highlights. Mr. Arditi’s enhanced our happiness and privilege to meet him after the show and to sign pictures of all of us tasting Valandraud during another trade show.
During this meeting, Pierre Arditi mentioned a shop located Boulevard Saint Germain who carries most of our wines. Thank you Thomas

Friday night, nothing, we were exhausted and had bad dinner in a brasserie close to our hotel Scribe, which actually was a nice place.
On Saturday, we had dinner at friends of ours, film producers, who were celebrating their new house near Beaubourg with one of our most loyal private client (thank you Cecile). During the meal we started with a producer champagne which I did not write the name, followed by a 1948 Haut Bommes Sauternes our friend François Audouze would have loved, it was very good although not too sweet, paired perfectly with foie gras. We then had a 2008 Hermitage white from Chave which worked well with scallops and Fall truffles, with the meat we had a very good bottle which I had not drank for a long time: the famous Chateau Montrose 1990; a magnum might have been more suitable for friends who are true "lovers." After, Petit Village 1990 Pomerol, difficult to follow Montrose, still very young and with a good number of years ahead and because we wanted him to taste one of our wines: Virginie de Valandraud 2007 to give us the strength to take a taxi and go to bed after 1 am.

The TGV is always nice, we ran into many colleagues from Bordeaux on the way to Paris and back.