Adissan wines

In addition to being fortunate in gaining an Italian-American family in the 1970’s, I also got a French one. My father’s second wife, Marianne, was from Normandy’s Caen in northern France.

They lived in an old mill in the country, surrounded by farms. They kept an apartment in Caen, and a small efficiency in Paris. Her father, Francois, would stay there when lecturing on the classics in Paris. I stayed there once or twice. By craning your neck out of a small kitchen window you could just catch the Eiffel Tower.

With the exception of Marianne, who is fluent in English, there was a bit of a language barrier with the rest of her family, unfortunately. But they always welcomed my brother and me to their house and treated us well.

I don’t really remember much about the food. I would have still been a fickle eater through my late teens, and wouldn’t have found much of it to my liking, probably. There would have been cheese—the soft, potent Camembert is produced locally. And wine, which I had no taste for until my early twenties.

My dad and Marianne live in France now, in the region of Languedoc. They avail themselves of local foods and always put out a delightful table, which Susan and I happily consume on semi-regular visits to the little village of Adissan.

Adissan wines are quite good. Like the better known wines of the nearby Rhone valley, the reds are primarily blends of grapes that flourish in hot, sunny, flinty stone: Syrah, Grenache and the like. However Adissan is also well known in France for its distinctive Clairette, a sweet white wine which, like Sauternes, pairs well with Roquefort and foie gras.

Locals repair to the local wine cooperative and purchase wine by the 5-litre jug. It is dispensed into these by a gas pump-like appendage. It is not romantic. But then wine is such a part of everyday life that this is not considered odd. My dad then takes this jug home and decants the wine into bottles and corks them to keep the wine fresh. It is meant to be consumed quickly. It’s decent drinking, nothing fancy, and helps the food down. It costs about a dollar a bottle when purchased in bulk.

Traditionally, Languedoc wines were inferior, inexpensive wines sold in bulk as plonk, the sort of wine included in a $10 prix fix dinner in cafes all over the country. Then they were undercut by the Algerians, who offered even cheaper wines. As their markets dropped out, the locals began making better wines and charging more for them. To me, most Languedoc wines are indistinguishable from those of the better known Rhone Valley now. A really good bottle will set you back $10-$15 there. And they are delicious, ripe, fruity, bold wines.

When we last visited in May of 2007 we walked through the village on a Friday evening. The locals had gathered to play bocce (it’s called petanque in France). They’d built a fire from old grape vine wood to grill sausages over and it seemed much of the village was there to play or observe the excitement. According to locals, old vines are fantastic for grilling. There are few things better than some good sausage grilled over hardwood and slapped into a piece of baguette. Merguez, the spicy north African lamb sausage, is particularly good.