In Britain when there is an accident at a power station, we re-name the power stations, in France they do things differently.
Last Christmas we got a lovely case of wine from Polly & James and last week we were drinking a bottle of it. It was a very nice fruity, southern number called Grignan les Adhemar . I was particularly taken with it, because many of Mme de Sevigny's letters were addressed to her beloved daughter Mme La Marquise de Grignan. I don't recall whether Adhemar was part of her title, it does ring a bell, so perhaps it was. The Grignans, rather unusually, did not live at Versailles in the great rookery with the rest of the French aristocracy. They lived on their estates in Southern France, much toMme de S's distress. I did not know they had vineyards, or whether this wine came from their estate, but I thought I would order some more, if it wasn't too expensive, and went online.
I soon found that Grignan les Adhemar was a bit too expensive for ordinary drinking - but then I saw that ASDA has it on offer - half price, so I promptly bought half a dozen, thinking if it was only terribly ordinaire it wouldn't be bad at that price. Actually, it was very good and so I've just bought another half dozen bottles, a snip at £4.37!
Then I saw another Google entry about the wine and discovered that it was not a new wine, or an undiscovered zone - "they" had decided to rename the area called "Coteaux de Tricastin". So actually I was just drinking good old C d T under another name. Why had they changed the name? Why the urgent need to re-brand a perfectly respectable wine area. Tricastin - true, I hadn't seen any for ages... and why did that name ring such a bell?.
I suddenly recalled when we were on holiday in the Lot in 2008, reading in one of the local papers all about a power station accident which had resulted in an undiscovered leak in the waste system for some months. This was all the more distressing since the power station (or centre nucleaire) was on a river, in the South, in a wine-growing and agricultural area (yes, that could be almost anywhere in southern France) but this power station was called Tricastin. Suddenly one just never saw the wine any more. A NY Times article in 2011 (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/dining/26iht-wine26.html?_r=0) pointed out that Tricastin was not the only wine area affected, the power station was on the Rhone after all. However, Tricastin was the only wine area that shared the power station name. Sales crashed, and in 2011 the wine growers applied to change the name of their appellation (an appellation that had only existed since 1973 apparently) and after that, the rest was history.
I am assuming that all the wine has a geiger counter passed over it - and that the warm glow I feel when I drink it, doesn't owe too much to the plutonium.
Last Christmas we got a lovely case of wine from Polly & James and last week we were drinking a bottle of it. It was a very nice fruity, southern number called Grignan les Adhemar . I was particularly taken with it, because many of Mme de Sevigny's letters were addressed to her beloved daughter Mme La Marquise de Grignan. I don't recall whether Adhemar was part of her title, it does ring a bell, so perhaps it was. The Grignans, rather unusually, did not live at Versailles in the great rookery with the rest of the French aristocracy. They lived on their estates in Southern France, much toMme de S's distress. I did not know they had vineyards, or whether this wine came from their estate, but I thought I would order some more, if it wasn't too expensive, and went online.
I soon found that Grignan les Adhemar was a bit too expensive for ordinary drinking - but then I saw that ASDA has it on offer - half price, so I promptly bought half a dozen, thinking if it was only terribly ordinaire it wouldn't be bad at that price. Actually, it was very good and so I've just bought another half dozen bottles, a snip at £4.37!Then I saw another Google entry about the wine and discovered that it was not a new wine, or an undiscovered zone - "they" had decided to rename the area called "Coteaux de Tricastin". So actually I was just drinking good old C d T under another name. Why had they changed the name? Why the urgent need to re-brand a perfectly respectable wine area. Tricastin - true, I hadn't seen any for ages... and why did that name ring such a bell?.
I suddenly recalled when we were on holiday in the Lot in 2008, reading in one of the local papers all about a power station accident which had resulted in an undiscovered leak in the waste system for some months. This was all the more distressing since the power station (or centre nucleaire) was on a river, in the South, in a wine-growing and agricultural area (yes, that could be almost anywhere in southern France) but this power station was called Tricastin. Suddenly one just never saw the wine any more. A NY Times article in 2011 (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/dining/26iht-wine26.html?_r=0) pointed out that Tricastin was not the only wine area affected, the power station was on the Rhone after all. However, Tricastin was the only wine area that shared the power station name. Sales crashed, and in 2011 the wine growers applied to change the name of their appellation (an appellation that had only existed since 1973 apparently) and after that, the rest was history.
And so, adiieu to Coteaux du Tricastin! We shall not see its label again.
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