Tasting the Landscapes

Two weeks ago, I departed in the Loire Valley countryside, to the Closel-Chateau des Vaults. In the heart of the Savennieres hills, it felt like I had landed on an entirely new planet. Angers can be nicely eerie and romantic with its grey, cold, rainy wintery weather, but I didn't know until driving a few miles out how much I've been just wanting color.
It was the perfect day for a wine tasting. The hike through the steep rocky hills up to the peaceful plot of vines, and incredible view of rows and rows of green hills dotted with trees and daisies, made for my first blue skied day.
The winery has been passed down woman to woman throughout three generations with an intense passion for wine and the french landscapes. Madame Evelyne de Pontbriand led our group through the vineyard.

Every morning the Madame gets up, she says, and treks up the hill, where she sings to her vines and the bees and the weeds, amid the wild deer and rabbits. She carefully inspects them, taking notice of each's development and stages, tasting the berries to tell if the vines are ready for harvest.
The wines harvested here are purely from the vine, no additives, no chemicals-purely the result of the landscape. Certified organic, many of the wines are named after their specific plot of land, and as the madame told us, when you are tasting the wine, you are tasting the landscape and you are tasting culture.

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We began with a spicy white wine-amazing flavor for something purely coming from the grape.
Then we tasted a white wine named Rain Water.
Then a sweet white wine and a newer Rose wine.
All were amazing.
She also talked to us about the many marketing and communication aspects of the wine business, and how wine tastings are the only way to communicate about wine to their audience or customers. California first took notice of this, offering wine tourism, and France soon followed.

It wasn't so much their passion for wine that was so great, but more so for nature itself-the way they respected it and coincided with the natural processes and organisms of the land. It made me want to change my major once again, but mainly made my realize the intimate connection we can have with nature by the everyday things we do, drink, and eat.

The next day at the market I saw this, as people returned to their favorite venders and farmers, getting their milk and their cheese from one, their bread from their favorite baker, their vegetables from another. They know the farmers, whom communicate to them their products like talking about their children. They know their food. They love it. And they don't rush through it.

I will not drink Franzia when I come back to America.