Victory Day in Villeneuve-Minervois

Wednesday, May 8th, 2019.

May 8th is a holiday in Europe, called Victory in Europe Day/ VE Day commemorating the end of WW11 on May 8th, 1945. 

It is a day of celebration and remembrance with church services, ceremonies and parades. We were in time to watch the parade as they marched to the monument with music playing on a loudspeaker. 

Wreaths are laid during the ceremonies at the monuments honouring those lost in the war in each village, town and city.

We planned to visit the village of Villeneuve-Minervois where a vide-Grenier was being held plus we had made reservations for a special lunch at a restaurant Monsieur Honey & I discovered five years ago and luckily it was still in operation. 

It was a foggy, misty morning ... 

And at times rainy ... and the GPS took us thru the Alaric Mountain region to reach our destination.


We first visited this village in 2005 where we almost became French landowners. 

The property was almost everything we wanted. I say “almost”.  It was missing the most important thing for our life in France an outside area either a courtyard or terrace. This was the deal breaker. Imagine what our life would have been like! 

The property is now a pharmacy located on this plane-tree lined street.

We wandered thru the  village and headed to the “vide-grenier” which literally means “empty attic” ... like a flea market, garage sale. It was being held inside at the “Salle de Fête.  

There were many tables set up with a variety of items ... we acquired a trivet depicting the French tradition of “faire chabrot” 

and a juicy melon! 

We had hoped to visit the truffle museum however it was closed today due to the holiday. We checked out the Church and several monuments as we headed to the restaurant. 

La Grande Fontaine ...

A beautiful streetscape ...


We arrived at the restaurant “la Table de Pareur” where we celebrated Jenn’s recent birthday. 

It was a good thing I had made a reservation as they were full and not taking walk ins. 

The courtyard entrance ...

Father and daughter ...

We had an amazing meal from the amuse bouche to dessert with great service.

We ventured further in the Minervois area after out lunch ... I will be writing a separate post. 

À bientôt et bienvenue in Toulouse!

Tuesday, May 7th, 2019

We were up early this morning to make sure our “Peugeot Airbus/ Navette” made it on time for its scheduled run to Toulouse-Blagnac Airport . 

A little tongue and cheek! 

Our rental car this trip is a Peugeot 2008 and Toulouse is the home of Airbus headquarters along with the production location of many Airbus models.

The Navette is a very efficient shuttle service that goes from Toulouse-Blagnac Airport to Toulouse Matabiau station every 20 minutes with several stops on the way. 

Nowadays there is also tram service that runs into the city of Toulouse from the airport. 

When we first started travelling to Europe together back in 2003, Monsieur Honey and I did so without rental cars. 

We did most of our travelling by bus and train. 

One of my most memorable experiences was travelling with a Eurail Pass on our first adventure; we spent four days in Paris, took a train from Gare d’Austerlitz to Cahors (in the Lot Valley) where our French Connection friends met us. 

We spent a few days with them in Belaye, then ventured off on the train. 

We saw so much/many different areas of France ... 

Arles, Avignon, Carcassonne, Collioure, Orange  and many other places and we finished our travels on the train into Belgium for a week. We TGV’ed our way from Brussels to Paris CDG for our return flight home.

Just a little trip down memory lane ... these days we travel by rental car. 

The sky was lit up in glorious hues and shades of orange, pink and red as the sun was rising. 

Our friend Laury’s visit was ending; she was meeting up with another friend at the Airport for an overnight visit before returning to her home in Cadrieu. 

Daughter, Jennifer’s flight from Canada was scheduled to land at 10:30AM. 

We said au revoir / à bientôt to Laury and bienvenue to Jennifer.  

We headed back to Montlaur with a stop in Trebes for lunch on the Quai along the Canal du Midi.

A nice easy start for Jennifer’s French week! 

 

Wine Country

While daughter, Jennifer was visiting with us we arranged a wine tasting at one of the five local village wine producers. 

Domaine Fourtanier is located at 9 Rue de Pontil just around the corner (as in walking distance) from our temporary “home away from home”.

We arrived at the appointed time (19h) and were greeted very warmly by friendly Frédéric (Frédo) Puget who owns & operates the business with his sister Bénédicte.  

We had an informative tour of the facilty prior to the tastings.

Fredo’s presentation was peppered with humour which made for an entertaining evening.

He explained how various wines were made and provided a detailed family history of the winery. 

The Fourtanier Family have been winemakers for 5 generations, since the late 19th century originating with his great-grandfather.

Some statistics from their website 

• 5th generation cave
• 11 hectares of vines - Grape variety: merlot, cabernet-sauvignon, grenache, cinsault, syrah, alicante
• 2 hectares of fields
• Annual production: 8 to 10,000 bottles, the rest in a cooperative cellar

Photo of Fredo and his great-grandmother (Madame Fourtanier) 

On to the tasting, we tried three different varieties - Syrah, two Cabernet Sauvignons, one unoaked (naked) and the other aged in oak barrels.

 

The oaked Cabernet Sauvignon was a 2014. Delicious! 

Merci beaucoup Frédo for a very informative, interesting and entertaining experience! 

Wishing you continued success! 

If you find yourself in the Aude, try Domaine Fourtanier’s wines. 

Email:  domainefourtainer@wanadoo.fr

Télé: 04.68.24.01.40