Yesterday I went to a very important event, at least according to my friends here at CERN – the wine market (Salon de Vins) in Thoiry. In a small hall and an attached tent 42 winegrowers presented their wines. Of course with the possibility to taste samples of the different sorts and vintages. We started out with testing champagne, went then through a number of white wines before we worked through all the red wines. As I was the designated driver, I mainly watched the tasting or smelled at the noble liquid to get an idea about the differences. But I also tried here and there.
But this was not a big party where everybody got drunk (my first understanding of this event) but rather serious business. We had a long list of orders from friends. And they did not order only single bottles but always boxes of 6. For every ordered wine type we had to find the correct booth in the exhibition, greet the winegrower (the friend I went with was very well known), taste the different vintages, select, negotiate, wait for the bill, pay, collect the wine, say goodbye and bring the lot to the car. And this for something like 15 different wine sorts…. During the afternoon the trunk of the car filled significantly and my friend had more problems to keep the oversight of what we had to look at next. Sitting down, eating some bread and drinking some water always helped to refocus.
But even so this was serious business, I had a real fun afternoon. Not drinking did not spoil the event at all. I learned a lot about wine and French wine growers and have now a better idea of what kind of wine I like. At the same time I met a lot of nice people from CERN (somehow most of the people we bumped into used to be working for OPAL). And the car did not break down, even so we put 189 bottles of wine into the trunk.
