We got invited to a wine tasting/exhibition event in Strasbourg by a friend of mine, who is a great wine enthusiast. As we don’t go to events like this very often (may be we will start now), it was more of a social visit for me to catch up with Martin, who I hadn’t seen in quite a while. But it turned out to be a good fun on its own as well, and we had a good time.
The Salon des Vins was organised by a body of independent winemakers from all over France, and it is an annual event similar as they have in other French cities. In the morning we had a bit of a problem with Henry, who decided he did not want to navigate in France, and quitted pretty much right on the bridge between Kehl and Strasbourg, but since we had a map too, and my great orientation and navigating skills came to help, we were there in no time nevertheless.
The place was quite big – apparently over 550 stalls of individual wineries, each with approx. 5-10 wines. Had we been on our own, we would have been quite lost, running around with our glasses as headless chickens, getting wasted on subpar stuff, not knowing good regions, good years or good names. Fortunately, we got to tag along with Martin, who did his research beforehand, went through the big fat catalogue, marking the stuff to be tasted selectively, building also on his experience from last year and on some impressive knowledge. So on top of tasting some exquisite wines, we also got the “wines for dummies” intro to wines from him, which was really interesting and fun. So all in all, everything worked out fine.
Vignerons
Gina enjoying the day
Of course there was the thing that one of us had to do the driving, and therefore not the drinking. Fortunately, Iestyn got completely wasted the night before, was massively hungover, and therefore did not mind taking up the role of the designated driver, as long as he could settle his stomach with a gargantuan French baguette stuffed with proper cheese and meat.
Iest
That’s the stuff!
The selection of wines was really big and some samples were just absolutely great. We also saw some more bizarre pieces on exhibition, such as these. But all in all it was a respectable wine event.
A bit overdressed perhaps?
Not drinking this without my lederhosen on
Of course, apart from the great wine, there were all the usual wine add-ons on sale in really tempting selections.
Cheese
Meat
Chocolate!
Of course at the end I selected the best samples to take with us home, so that Iestyn got something out of it as well. Can’t wait to break into them one of these nice evenings. And may be next year we go again.
Tags: France, Salon des Vins des Vignerons Indépendants, Strasbourg, wine exhibition, Wine tasting