Chalone trip to France plus England
Luigi and Manly, 1993
When we arrived in Charles DeGaulle Airport about 8:00 in the morning of Sunday, June
27, Luigi and I were met by a young man carrying a sign reading simply "CHALONE." We were
the only members of the Chalone shareholders group on that flight, so he did not wait for others
to disembark and took us directly to his car and drove us to the Hotel Lutetia on the Left Bank, in
the Mont Parnasse region. We spent most of the rest of the day resting, though Luigi interrupted
her rest with a walk. An early dinner at a restaurant called Cour St. Germain prepared us to go to
bed so that we would not be any more tired than necessary for the next day.
There were about 40 of us on the bus the next morning, including Bill and Vicki Hamilton
(she being the Chalone Special Events Director), Paddy Nichols, (the tour director), Bob and
Barbara Longstreth and Max who had all been on the Chile trip last year. This time Max brought
his friend Karen. Most of the others were from California, but several other States were
represented, including Mississippi whence came Hardy and Judy Graham of Meridian. The latter
charmed Luigi by replying, when asked whether she washed her silk blouse or had it dry cleaned,
"I really don't know, I just hand it to my maid." He owns the local Coca Cola bottling
plant.
The first hotel was the Chateau de la Muire, an old manor house at Reims, 140 kilometers
east northeast of Paris. I relaxed and Luigi joined the others looking at the Cathedral (which she
and I had seen a few years ago) and taking a tour of the Moet winery riding on a train that some
said made the experience resemble Disneyland. The group was supposed to tour the Veuve
Cliquot winery, but a labor disturbance (which included kidnapping the president of the company)
prevented it. We did have a delicious dinner at the Chateau Veuve Cliquot, in a very old room
with stone walls and colorful hangings. Very good Champagne and other wines, too.
On Tuesday we drove through the countryside admiring the vineyards along the
"Montagne de Reims" -- a ridge of chalk on the sides of which the vines prosper. There were
visits to and tastings at Bollinger in the village of Ay and Pol Roger in Epernay, where we met the
current M. Roger. Not only do the grapes grow on the chalk subsoil, but the aging wine is stored
in miles of tunnels in the chalk, some of the holes leading to the tunnels having been started in
Roman times. During a tour of one of these tunnels I ascertained that I could drive my thumbnail
into the chalk wall.
Dinner was at Les Crayeres, a restaurant rated three stars in the omnipotent Michelin
guide. Specially printed menus of the dinner were printed and folded inside glossy covers bearing
a reproductions of a painting especially rendered for Gerard Boyer, the proprietor and chef. Wines
included Champagne Lanson Black Label Brut as an aperitif and Chassagne Montrachet 1986,
Chateau Ormes de Pez 1983 and Muscat de Rivesaltes Domaine Cazes. Dinner comprised la
minute de saumon frais tagliatelle de legumes a l'huile de truffes; la croustade de champignons des
bois, sauce cressonette; le filet de Saint-Pierre grille, petit flan de bouchot, concassee de tomates
et oignons safranes; la poularde de bresse en demi-deuil, riz basmati, foie gras et truffes; la grande
assiette de desserts et les petits fours frais; and le cafe moka et ses fins chocolats maison. With all
that wine my recollection of what those dishes actually were is a little dim, and my French is good
enough only to partially translate all that into: fresh salmon with vegetables and truffle oil; wild
mushroom tart; grilled white fish with tomato and onion sauce; chicken and rice with foie gras and
truffles (a slice of truffle was inserted under the skin of each chicken breast); an assortment of
desserts and fresh petit-fours; and mocha coffee with chocolate candy. The meal was served on
the terrace of an old manor house. The staff would remove your crumpled napkin and give you a
fresh heavy linen napkin every time you left the table (as many did in view of the length of the
meal). When the main course was brought to a table of eight, four waiters stood around the table
and simultaneously lifted the silver-plated covers from the plates. This practice was followed at a
number of other fancy restaurants -- perhaps it is something one does to earn Michelin
stars.
We returned to Paris on Wednesday in time to catch the pre-noon train to Bordeaux. This
was one of the Tres Grande Vitesse (Very High Speed) trains that the French are justly proud of.
Lunch was served at our seats and the ride was so smooth that the wine didn't slosh in our
glasses. We reached Bordeaux in southwestern France in the early afternoon and stayed in a
pleasant hotel, the Burdigala, near the center of the city.
On Thursday we visited wineries in Medoc and Pauillac, including Chateau Mouton and
Chateau LaFite, belonging to different, though amicable, branches of the Rothschild family. The
latter had a very impressive underground room, round and about a hundred feet in diameter, in
which barrels of wine were stored. At dinner time a long bus ride took us to a dock at Arcachon
where we caught a boat (that did not display much evidence of life preservers) across a bay to
"the simple village of Le Canon;" a few minutes walk brought us to a remarkable restaurant of
which the architect's mother must have been frightened by a jungle gym. It was on several levels,
the sides mostly open to the elements, with tables wherever there were not staircases. En route
we were treated to a discussion of the oyster raising industry in that bay, including a display of
small sections of planks on which baby oysters fastened themselves after hatching. Dinner was
good, mostly seafood.
Friday was mostly devoted to Sauternes, including lunch at Chateau
Rieussec, next door to Chateau d'Yquem. Rieussec is owned by the Lafite Rothschilds and we
were served an excellent lunch there after an instructive illustrated lecture about the way
Sauternes wine is made. The grapes are picked individually when either (a) botrytis mold is well
advanced on the grape or (b) the grape is ripe but not moldy. Slightly moldy grapes are left on
the vine to become moldier. The (a) grapes are turned into the famous sweet wine of the region
and the (b) grapes are fermented in the normal way and are turned into a dry white wine. We had
Chateau Rieussec (sweet) as both an aperitif and a dessert wine and Rieussec (dry white
Bordeaux without the Chateau or the Sauternes appellation) to accompany the main course.
On Saturday Luigi and most of the others went on a tour of the Pomerol and St. Emilion
regions while I rested and wandered about the city a little. St. Emilion is an old walled city on the
top of a hill, very picturesque. What I was resting for was the evening dinner catered at Chateau
LaFite. Chalone and Lafite have a cross-ownership arrangement under which each owns some of
the other's stock, so we were given VIP treatment. As favors, each lady was given a handsome
green Limoges china plate with a picture of the Chateau on it, and each gentlemen got a wooden
box bearing the legend "Grand Vin de Bordeaux, Chateau LaFite, 1986 -- Rothschild" with what
seems to be a bottle inside. Among the wines we had at that meal was some Chateau Lafite and it
was very good indeed; I only wish it had been the first because after I've consumed a few glasses
of wine, my perception is not so keen. For this meal the menus were printed on small cards, and I
am enclosing a copy with this letter. The waiters performed the same cover-lifting routine as at
Les Crayeres, but they did not replace napkins when the user left the table.
A dozen or so of our group left to return to the U.S. on Sunday and the rest of us went by
bus, first to the spectacular and crowded resort city of Biarritz for lunch and then to St. Jean Pied
de Port in the Pyrenees, just north of the Spanish border. This is the Basque country town where
pilgrims to Santiago de Campostela would gather before crossing the mountains in the middle
ages. Some still do; one who makes the effort of walking at least 100 kilometers in the process
can obtain a certificate to that effect and his time in purgatory will be cut in half. In view of my
knee and foot problems, I decided to reduce my sinning instead.
We stayed in "Les Pyrenees," a nice small hotel on a street which, Monday morning,
served as a market. Local people brought their produce to town to sell to each other; others tried
to sell things to the former or to the tourists. I bought a compact disc of Basque music titled "Bal
Champetre au Pays Basque -- Orchestre Champetre Ramuntcho;" it contains about 30 songs, all
lively and all but the last sounding very much alike, even though some purport to be marches,
some quadrilles and some fandangos. The last, "Cri des Bergeres Basques" (Cry of the Basque
Shepherds) sounds like a cross between a rebel yell and a coyote wail. We celebrated the Fourth
of July here, not with fireworks but with small paper American flags and occasional songs (though
no one was willing to try the "Star Spangled Banner.")
On Tuesday the bus took us north and east to the Dordogne Region and the village of
Montignac (east southeast of Perigeux) where we stayed at the 19th century Chateau de Puy
Robert. Next to the Chateau itself is a newer building, with rooms all the same size where we
stayed, in a lovely rolling pastoral setting. So pastoral that we saw bales of hay and cattle in an
adjacent field. The chief attraction of Montignac is the Lascaux Cave, discovered by boys playing
in 1940. This cave contains paintings 15,000-20,000 years old of various animals that roamed the
area, but not of men nor of the deer that were the main source of meat of the men who lived
there. The actual cave is now closed to the public, but a replica has been made and is visited by
throngs of people each day. The skill and artistic sophistication of the artists is very impressive,
including the way they used parts of the uneven surface of the cave interior as part of their
painting, and the effectiveness with which, by a few lines and varying techniques of applying
pigment, they portrayed the essence of the wild oxen, horses, bison and other animals they
painted.
We were also taken to a goose farm where they raise and force feed geese to turn their
livers into foie gras. After reaching full size the geese are put in pairs in pens about a meter
square in a barn. Each pen is made of iron pipe, with a depression in one wall where the farmer
(or his wife) thrusts the bird's head down and then up with the beak around a traveling funnel
containing boiled corn. The wings are clamped down and the goose's neck is rubbed to help the
corn pass into the stomach. Then the bird is released after its head is briefly turned 90 degrees to
make sure the corn stays down.
Also at Montignac we learned to appreciate the local wines from such places as Cahors
and Bergerac; we were told that they have improved markedly in recent years. After visiting the
preserved/restored 12-17th century city of Sarlat with its stone walls and narrow, winding streets
on Thursday, we were taken to Angouleme on Friday where we caught the TGV train back to
Paris. There we had dinner at a good Indian restaurant and accompanied the meal with
beer.
Luigi and I stayed in Paris at the Hotel Windsor, on the Right Bank near the Arc de
Triumph, until Monday. We saw a good exhibition of the "Tresors de la Russie" comprising many
old Russian gold and silver crowns, cups, tea services etc. at the Petit Palace museum, and the
new glass pyramid designed by Y.M. Pei over the present entrance in the courtyard of the Louvre.
Luigi disapproves because it impairs the view of the structure surrounding the courtyard. On
Sunday we took a long subway ride out to La Villette, a major development at the northeast edge
of Paris with a sports complex, concert hall, amusement park, playgrounds, science and industry
museum, hotel, apartment building and very few people. Indeed, except for the Champs Elysees
which is always crowded, Paris appeared able to accommodate many more tourists than it
had.
London, on the other hand, seemed to have all the tourists it needs. On Monday the 12th
of July, we took a fast train to Boulogne, a huge, fast catamaran to Folkestone, and a train of
dignified speed to Victoria Station. A taxi delivered us to the Ashburn Garden Apartments, just
off Cromwell Road. We were welcomed by Mr. Aresti, the manager, who arranged to have us and
our luggage taken up separately in the small elevator to the second floor where our apartment was
Number 11. It had a large living room and a medium-sized bedroom plus kitchenette and
bathroom with a working shower and a built-in retractable clothesline over the tub. The hotel
occupies both number 3 and number 4 Ashburn Gardens (a couple of old row houses) and is
possibly four stories high. Rentals are by the week and the cost amounts to about $100 per night.
Maid service occurs Monday through Friday, and there is a rack in the lobby containing leaflets
describing many of the things to do in the city. A large supermarket with decent prices and an
excellent selection (including better cherries from Washington State than I bought here at the
Farmer's Market) is about a block away. In addition to sandwiches and breakfast foods they also
had some Hungarian Merlot wine at a reasonable price that turned out well.
Luigi picked out one leaflet dealing with theaters, and on Thursday we got around to
going to the ticket exchange at Victoria Station where we got tickets for that evening's
performance of The Last Yankee by Arthur Miller with Peter Davidson and for Friday
evening's performance of Separate Tables," a revival of a good 1950's play. The ticket
exchange also sold subway tickets, though we didn't buy any there. Our neighborhood
Underground station, Gloucester Road, is in the center of a large area full of tourists, mostly
young and many who speak English only as a second language. Paddy Nichols, our tour director,
referred to such people as "Grockles." Each morning after breakfast there were long lines of
people waiting to buy the daily pass that is good only after 9:30 A.M. By Friday I learned to buy
not only that day's pass but Saturday's pass, too. You can get a weekly pass, but that requires a
passport photo.
Our apartment was also close to the Victoria and Albert Museum, and we both took
advantage of the fact. We went to the National Museum to see the Elgin Marbles, but the room
where they are was blocked off in preparation for a party to be held later in the day. Indeed each
of us saw all the museums he or she wanted to and I got to take several naps and short walks
about the neighborhood. Also I was able to visit my tailor near Picadilly Circus and pick up a
couple of suits I'd ordered as well as have an old suit let out (it interfered with my enjoying some
of the meals in France) and have the left cuff on my gray flannel slacks repaired.
On Friday we took the subway out to the Docklands, a huge redevelopment project for
which Skidmore, Owings and Merrill opened a London office several years ago. Of course it
does not appear on our 20-year-old London maps, but does show on the current London
Transport maps. Included in the Docklands redevelopment area is the Canary Wharf Project that
contributed substantially to the demise of Olympia and York by failing to draw tenants. Although
the office building part of the area resembles a ghost town, there is some life in the residential
areas of the development, including a small shack of a restaurant on the bank of the Thames
across from Greenwich and the Royal Naval College.
There were a couple of restaurants of which we thought highly: Beotys, a Greek-Mediterranean establishment near Leicester Square and the Bombay Brasserie a couple of blocks
from our apartment. We had our last regular meal at their buffet brunch Sunday afternoon. It
included a very tasty dish of lamb cooked in yogurt and orange zest which Luigi successfully
copies (but with beef) after our return. Sunday evening we had sandwiches and beer in our
apartment before going to bed early to get some rest before meeting the taxi driver at 5:30
Monday morning to go to Heathrow and the flight back to Chicago.