French Food

After a rather unproductive morning, we decided for lunch to try again to buy some escargots from a restaurant. We went to another restaurant for lunch that one of my friends found online and ordered some meals with a side of escargots. The food at this restaurant was much better than at the restaurant last night. The snails were okay, a little flavourless with the only flavour coming from the sauce – like my experience eating snails in Thailand late last year. The snails were a little difficult to get out of the shell, and Oliver accidentally sent one flying across the room as it slipped out of the utensil that was provided. Thankfully it didn’t land on anyone.

Wine Tasting

We were originally planning on a day trip to Champagne to do some wine tasting but after concluding that it may be too much of a hassle, I decided to book a wine tasting in Paris instead. Just Oliver and I went to the wine tasting, with Oliver knowing very little about wine and myself not much more. To be honest, wine is only something I started to enjoy this year, and I only really found some red and white sparkling wines that I liked. The tasting was just a short walk from our hotel in a room under a fancy wine bar. It lasted for 2 hours, with tasting of one champagne, 2 white wines and 3 red wines. This was significantly more enjoyable than what I was expecting. Oliver and I were the youngest people there by far, but I felt that we were welcomed there, and I enjoyed learning about the different wine regions of France. I also learnt that different regions are only allowed to put the name of their region on the wine if they produce the exact type of wines that are produced in that area. This means that when choosing a bottle of French wine, they do not say what type of grape was used to produce the wine, you just need to know what kind of wine is produced in the region advertised on the bottle. We were also taught the process of tasting wine and detecting if the wine you have been served is faulty. I learnt a lot about the different types of wine-making techniques and the terms used on sparkling wines ‘brut’, ‘extra brut’, and the somewhat misleadingly named ‘extra dry’ mean in terms of the sweetness and the dryness of sparkling wines. I then proceeded to ask about another term I had seen on sparkling wines ‘Cuvee’ which the knowledgeable guide explained meant that the second fermentation of the wine takes place in a large drum rather than in the bottle which results in the yeast having more surface area to attack the wine therefore allegedly resulting in less of a full flavour. The guide was very knowledgeable, and I could go on for a while listing all the different questions I had answered. After talking with one of the American people in the group I was able to figure out that Syrah is effectively the same as Shiraz, and is the name often used for Shiraz in other countries such as the US. The wines were all amazing, even the white wines which is saying a lot if I liked it. They also paired well with the cheese and meat platter that we ordered. I found that pairing champagne with Brie was quite nice, as the champagne completely removed the aftertaste that this type of cheese typically has. I think this tasting has been my unlikely highlight of Paris, and ironically despite being the youngest, I can be confident in saying we were the most well-behaved in the group of around 15 others.