More Pictures From France

December 10, 2007

Greetings Everyone!

I wanted to send a few more pictures for all to view. Enjoy!

We had a great interview with Jean-Luc Thunevin, owner of Chateau Valandraud and several other labels. He was the 1st garage wine producer in St. Emilion. He only started about 10 years ago. He and his wife graciously invited us into their home for lunch, which was simply amazing. Before they showed us their small facility operations we got introduced to their most important member of the family "Fifi" who is a rooster. It is this rooster that Jean-Luc claims his luck in such fine Merlot based wines. During lunch of course they shared several bottles of their Merlot based wines with us. After lunch Jean-Luc's wife Murielle took us to their new beautiful Chateau and showed us around. It's not quite complete with accommodation renovations, but she did invite us to stay there next time we're in France. Awesome! The view alone is to die for & they make outstanding wines, regardless of not having the Premier Grand Cru title. The price range and tastings they are rated in will tell you they are right up there side by side with them in wine quality. Murielle also gave us a demonstration of her pruning techniques and explained that it wasn't the same for every vine and year to year it could change. It is like she has a personal relationship with each individual vine as if they were children and needed to be directed on the right path as they age.

Later on that same day, actually for dinner we had another interview. This time it was all attention on Michel Rolland. We were lucky that he even had set some time aside for us. He's a very busy man, always on the move. They next day he was leaving for South Africa. I loved his tie. It appropriately had airplanes flying through the clouds. He was a very nice, down to earth man. He had great humor & at the end of the meal he was even nice enough to pay the tab. He also let us know that he would be in the Napa Valley in January & that he wanted to meet up with us again in our home area. He thought it would be nice to have a sushi party at Go-Fish. So, Rachna you'll be on that right? J/K :-) I guess you could say the interview went well if he still wants to hang with us. We're excited!

The other night our new French friend Elisa invited us to the restaurant where she works for an evening of music in their cellar. It was featuring a very interesting French cover band. They were even nice enough to humor us with several American music covers. I bought their cd for the memory of a fun, quirky night.

Last night we went to the Libourne Cinema Theater and watched the only showing of an English speaking film, I'm not there. It was pretty good. Very artistic & I probably most liked it because it was about the guru Bob Dylan. I love him. Later on in the week we might hop on train to the city of Bordeaux to watch another film. There are more options there. We'll see though, our last week is pretty full of interviews. The weather hasn't been very good either and this always puts a damper on filming. Definitely makes it more difficult, unless we are located inside. Please send us some good thoughts for good weather. Right now it is very windy (it's whistling), but at least its not raining.

P.S. Darioush Crew-->don't forget to send me some pictures from the Holiday Party.

Best wishes to everyone,
Marisol