Off to the Internship

So crazy to think about it but I have been here in France for a month now… WHOA! Right now it’s one of those I feel like I just got off the plane to meet Thomas but yet at the same time I feel like I have been here forever. We have done so much and made so many memories in such a short amount of time, it hardly seems possible.

So a little update on where I am and what I am doing/have done. Currently I am riding my second train to my internship where I will meet my host family. Nathalie is supposed to be there to pick me up. On the Purpan program we study for 1 month at school in Toulouse and for the 2^nd month have an internship at a farm or vineyard. For me I was chosen to go on a vineyard but no, not just any vineyard… I am going to Bourgogne or the Burgundy region in English. What makes this even more hilarious is that when they did our internship presentation on where we would all be they showed a map of everyone. Most people on the animal option were kind of spread out with some being closer to Switzerland but most stayed relatively close to Toulouse, within 2-3 hours. Next came the vineyard people. Our map was shown and there was 1 lone dot towards the northern part of France with most of the group being in Bordeaux and the more southern parts of France, close to the Mediterranean. I even joked with someone how that dot was going to be me, not actually thinking it would be. Lo and behold, when they called my name it was me up there. Don’t get me wrong I am super excited I am going up there and I cannot wait to see what adventures this new place has in store for me. But at the same time I am worried as to what is going to go on.

You see I was not given the amount of information that many were about their families. As of right now I know that I will be staying with my family, just not sure how many members they consist of. I do not know if they speak any English or what type of work I will be doing. But I am off to a new adventure and whatever happens I know I can make it through a month! For those of you who may want a more physical description of where I am going try googling Fontenay-Pres-Chablis and see what you find. Also here is the website to the vineyard I am working on www.nathalieetgillesfevre.com.

As for things that have gone on since my last blog, it has been a whirlwind once again but also filled with some bittersweet moments.

I left you at Marseille and my wonderful adventure there. The next morning we began our first classes that I believe everyone was the most excited for… WINE TASTING! The lecture is still the same amount of time, 3 hours, but after the break we taste wine instead of listen to lecture. So for 1.5 hours of the day I am tasting wine. Pretty cool in my opinion. Our first day of lecture we went over “how to wine taste” and what are some of the key things to know about wine tasting. First off, and in my opinion one of the most important things to know, is that it is better to taste wine when you are hungry, aka before lunch. This is when we did our wine tastings, at around 10:30-12:00. Next thing to know, you are not supposed to ingest the wine you are tasting so that way you don’t get drunk and can keep tasting the wine. You actually are supposed to spit it out and they even give you buckets to do it in… Crazy right!

But like I said we tasted a lot of wine. The first day was whites. Whites are supposed to be easiest to taste and have the least amount of complexity as compared to rosé and reds. It is strange but I have been a big fan of all the whites I have had here so far and very rarely have I not enjoyed one. Some reds, ehh, I could do without a full glass.

After wine tasting lunch and then French lessons. It was our last few days of French and I am not going to lie guys… I still feel super nervous about going out to a family who may or may not speak English. My info sheet did not tell me and the email response I got after emailing and asking a few questions was all in French! But I am doing my best to learn as much as I can in the short amount of time I have here!

Day 2 of wine class was about the wine making process. We went through a very simplified version of how to make wine with a nice flow chart included. This info partnered with a book I am reading really helped me understand how we get from grapes to wine without it turning to vinegar. Our teacher, Xavier, had a really cool analogy that went with his explanation on why all the chemical processes have to go on in order for the wine to turn out the way it does. He said, “Wine is a transition. It is the halfway point for grape juice on its way to vinegar.” I thought this was a pretty cool statement to make and a good use of wording to describe what wine really is. After the wine making process we learned about the different areas of production for wine in France. Once again this info combined with my book has lead me to know a fairly decent amount of info regarding some of the important areas of France. After that we tasted rosé. Still not my favorites and in all honesty, probably my least favorite category of wine

Here are the 5 rosé wines we tasted on that day!

Side Note: the book is called Judgment of Paris: California vs France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine, by George Taber. It is a good historical novel for anyone who is interested in wine I recommend reading it. It does a little on the history of wine in the U.S. and France as well as the events before and after the tasting that Napa Valley wines first beat French wines. Thank you Annarose Hart for giving me the read before I came!

Day 3 of wine class was going over the French market and world market for wine as well as statistics for wine making. Basically there are 3 categories for wine producers. Old World: France, Spain and Italy, New World: U.S. Austrailia, New Zealand, S. Africa, Chile and Argentina and Other. Europe contains 60-70% of all land area under vines in the world, but are steadily decreasing. New world area is continuing to increase.

Another important thing to know about wine in Europe there are 3 classifications. AOP, which stands for Appellation d”Origine Protégée, is the most expensive but also is the ones that are worth drinking in my opinion. These are wines that come from designated areas within France that have rules on where the grapes can come from. This means that grapes are from a certain “terroir” or tradition of type of land and maintenance. This gives it a distinct flavor and aroma. Within AOP there is also different classifications depending on the area. IGP, wine where it comes from a much larger area with not as many rules, is cheaper and in art terms “paints with a broad stroke” on where they can get their grapes. Without IGP is the final category and consists of wine made from grapes where they aren’t many rules.

We also learned this important lesson for amateur wine consumers, like myself, so Mom and Dad listen up. When selecting wine here are some rules regarding vintage, or the year. Select Dry White, and Rosé wine for 1-2 years ago. Not any older and the younger the better. These are meant to be drunk within the year they are created. Sweets there is a bit more flexibility but you still want to drink them relatively young. For reds though, there are no rules. Each AOP is different and has different lengths as to when you should drink their wine. Some it is better to drink in less than 5 years, others are not any good unless you wait for 10! It all depends on which ones you buy.

When I was talking about bittersweet moments, Wednesday night was one of the big things I was talking about. We had a free afternoon off that allowed us to get prepared for our farewell dinner that evening. We were told to get in groups of 2-4 people and make a traditional dish that would feed around 8. They said traditional as there are students on the program the U.S. Lebanon, China, Mali and Hong Kong. So each of us have a different idea of traditional. My group, Cathy, Margeaux and myself, decided with a classic American dish, FRIED CHICKEN! It was so good and for first time chicken friers we did a pretty good job. Thanks Dad for the recipe as well as instructions! We had a wonderful evening that night thinking over memories and taking lots of pictures before everyone left for their internships. Also the food was tremendous, couscous with peanut chicken from Mali, fried rice and shrimp from China, so many amazing things from Lebanon that I don’t even know what they all were and so much AMERICAN FOOD! Even though we weren’t able to quite do our best Americana cuisine, we attempted with mac n’ cheese (not velveeta), puppy chow (made with corn flakes instead of chex) and beer brats (just sausages cooked in beer and onions).

This is the K-State Crew at our farewell dinner! So sad since only 3 of us will be returning back to Manhattan as Andrea has just graduated and will be going to grad school... Hopefully in FRANCE!

The next day we went to visit 2 vineyards in the Bordeaux region. These vineyard visits were actually really cool because we knew what types of questions to ask and what we were looking at when he pointed to certain machines and started talking in French. Our second visit was one I thought was the most interesting. Sauternes is a type of wine that is a super sweet white wine. Not very popular in the Europe because of that, but has a huge market overseas. The vineyard we went to actually was totally organic. I thought this was interesting as they said they don’t actually have much of a market for organic wine in France. Instead they tend to ship it to Germany and Scandinavia where the organic movement is much more of a big deal, at least for wine. They do a lot with biodiversity on their property and plant hedgerows every so often to help increase animal traffic as well as have numerous flower and vegetable gardens. They are the only vineyard producing Sauternes wine to have converted to completely organic and I am interested to see how it this venture turns out in the future.

Each of these barrels are from a different company and are barrels that have been used before. This helps them cut down on the amount of resources they are using and helps reduce costs for the company. However, it does present more work for them since they have to taste each barrel separately to make sure they get the right blend of wine.

This is what the rot looks like that they use for Sauternes wine. The rot helps turn more of the grape to sugar to allow the wine to be super sweet.

On Friday, it was our final day of classes. I was super nervous as we had our French evaluation that day and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I ended up being the first to go for the day and it didn’t end as bad as I had thought it would. We were given a partner for the interview which consisted of a topic you had drawn and having a conversation about with the teacher role playing as a certain type of person. Chris and my self’s turned out to be talking about what we do in our free time to a person who was acting as our intern director. This wasn’t bad. The worst came whenever we had to do our final listening activity. All it was, was a simple fill in the blank activity but they talked so fast I missed most of them and ended up just guessing to know what they said.

That night we had our final hooray as we celebrated the graduation of the Purpan students with them, including the Program Assistants. They were all graduating as well and had invited us to come watch everything go on since we were at the school.

After that there was a group of us who wanted to go see the Hippodrome of Toulouse in action and tonight would be the night! We weren’t sure on how much it would cost to get in but turns out it was a good night to be there as admission was free and it was an event that looked like chariot racing to me. Ask an equestrian what it really was called since I don’t know. But one rule is that they cannot run. Instead it is all trotting and at a very fast pace. If the break gait (see Mom and you thought I didn’t remember anything from my horse riding days) and go into a gallop then they are disqualified. We stayed for 3 races, one of which ended up being a mounted one. This was super interesting as the horses were ridden like regular jockeys would but instead it was all trotting again! It was such an odd experience watching horses trot across a finish line, instead of barreling down with all their speed! Still thought an incredible experience nonetheless.

The next day I spent on the town with people seeing sights and saying my last goodbyes to Toulouse. I finally got my kebab here! I guess Toulouse in famous for them but it was delicious and not really like anything we have in the U.S. Closest thing I would compare them to is a walking pita sandwich.

This brings me to where I am now, riding a train, waiting to see what my host family is like and what this new month will bring me. I still can’t believe it has already been a month. But if this next one is even half as good as the last one was I will be one happy camper!

I thought this quote was pretty fitting for my attitude while I am here in Europe, aka you have to make the memories and you cannot wait for them to come to you.

“Your resume isn’t handed to you with your birth certificate. You can create and recreate your own life.”- Ken Robinson