Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

It’s the second outing for the Gastronomicom wine course on Sunday so the plan for Saturday is to look around Agde and visit Noilly Prat in Marseillan, just up the road. A visit to the Agde cathedral is scuppered as there’s a horde outside clearly waiting for a wedding. So, over the river to Chateau Laurens, an amazing construction from the early 20th century created for and by Emmanuel Laurens, who inherited an immense sum and gave up his medical studies to travel the world and live a life of luxury. That visit, too, was nearly scuppered as you have to reserve. Fortunately, there was a guide free so they opened up a visit for us and another six people joined up in the ten minutes before it started; we clearly weren’t the only ones who didn’t know about the compulsory booking arrangements.

Built in just three years (1898-1901), it fell into ruin after Laurens died heirless in the 1950’s. Bought by Agde in the 1990’s, it took over 20 years to restore; the staircase below gives an idea of the general style but the house was innovative (for the time) being built with reinforced concrete and featuring electric lights and underfloor heating. The house also had a private train station (although the Agde one can’t have been more than a couple of hundred metres away!) and mooring for two large yachts. Not to mention a “music room” (more like a church) created for his opera singer wife and an incredible stained glass window in the private apartments.

Then on to Marseillan where, after a wrong turn or two, we find a shady parking spot. We head for our lunch reservation at the recommended (and appreciated) Château du Port where we are surprised by the relative lack of clientele. Perhaps everybody is waiting until tomorrow (Mothers Day in France) to dine out.

Our visit to Noilly Prat starts out badly as the receptionist insists we’ve booked for a tour in German. Fortunately, some Swedish visitors agree there was no indication the visit wasn’t in French and we can demonstrate that there is definitely a route to book a visit without being shown the language. Fortunately our guide is multilingual so there’s no problem anyway. Our visit ends with a tasting and both J. and I consider the extra dry version (created for use in vodka martinis) to be inferior to the original. Maybe I should try using the red for a Negroni, however…

We have a relatively early start on Sunday for our sommelier to drive us to Mas de Novi, an estate that turns out to be next to the Abbey de Valmagne we visited last week. Indeed, there is a link: the “Novi” in the name reflects the fact that the buildings once housed novitiates. We have an interesting tour, enhanced by apposite questions from our sommelier which bring out the subtleties of the AOP rules and wine making process, including a discussion about the difference in size between Bordeaux and Burgundy barrels and the impact this has on the maturation of the wine (none as it is just 3l: 625l vs 628l, apparently). As well as the barrels, they also mature some wine in amphorae and some in clay eggs, although our guide (there for just a few months) couldn’t explain the reasons for this.

After a lunch of local oysters and other sea food at Coqui Thau we head back to the residence. J. and I wend our way to the beach for a while, then back for an aperitif and dinner—a dinner we can eat on the balcony after a windy interlude forced us to move indoors part way through our wine and olives.