This is going to be a short post, frankly because there isn’t much to talk about. Our routine is pretty established, but we have decided to join one activity on each of these two days: a winetasting. Why? Well, we had dinner at Polo, one of the specialty restaurants, a few days ago. Our sommelier was a delightful woman from the Philippines named Elaine. Not only does she know a great deal about wine, but she is also a great salesperson.
During the course of serving us glasses of wine, she mentioned that there would be a winetasting on November 22nd at 1:30pm with the name Forever French, and asked if we would be interested in going. Cathy has not been imbibing, so Steve hems and haws, but Cathy says “Why not?” Elaine has found her mark, and soon we have signed up. Steve has even made the Freudian slip of forgetting his ship card, so Cathy even has to pay, so Elaine has decided that, from now on, Cathy is the person to convince.
November 22nd: So the day arrives. We eat a heavy lunch at the GDR in preparation for the winetasting. Our “day-drinking” days are years behind us, so we are not quite sure how the consumption of wine will affect us, hence the caution.
At 1:30pm on the dot, we show up at Toscana, the other specialty restaurant, which serves as the venue for all the winetasting events. We are seated with another couple, Nelson and Mirabelle, and we introduce ourselves. There are about fifteen others in attendance. We are greeted with a glass of champagne, introduce ourselves to our tablemates, and the show begins. Our host and guide is the Head Sommelier, whose name is Leonardo. He introduces himself by saying “My name is Leonardo. Some call me DaVinci, some call me DeCaprio.” He is very enthusiastic, quite humorous and we quickly can see that he really enjoys putting these events on.
With a PowerPoint presentation accompanying his remarks, he explains that we will be tasting five excellent wines from five different regions of France. Each of these will be accompanied by a small portion of food especially chosen because it will bring out the flavor of the wine we are drinking.
The event moves right along. First Leonardo schools us on the various wine regions of France, going into quite a bit of detail about which wines are produced in each one and the qualities of each area such as weather, topography and soil conditions and how they affect the taste and quality of the grapes grown there. A lot of history is woven into his presentation as we proceed.
Next, he introduces the qualities we will examine as wine tasters: clarity, color, texture (the ‘legs”), smell (a slide lists some of them) and, finally, taste.
Now we begin to taste the five wines, which all have been poured shortly before Leonardo begins his presentation. We list the wines in the order of the food we eat with them (i.e., as you see them on the plate, from left to right):
- Pouilly Fume with fish salad with caviar.
- Cote de Beaune with chicken pate’.
- Chambertin with beets and goat cheese.
- Chateauneuf du Pape with cheese gougere.
- De Graves with beef tartare (This was the most expensive of the lot, well over $100 a bottle).
We conclude at 3pm. Leonardo has explained that tomorrow’s winetasting event only has eight people signed up so far, and it will have to be canceled if the minimum number of ten attendees isn’t met. Elaine is there to help clean up. The winetasting tomorrow will be all white wines from around the world, and, sure enough, she asks if we would we would like to attend. Again, Cathy has to think it over for two or three seconds, and says “Sure, why not?”
It’s something to do, it’s educational and enjoyable, and it will give us a chance to get better acquainted with Nelson and Mirabelle. That opportunity does not happen at the end of the winetasting, that’s for sure. The staff goes into cleanup mode immediately, loud music begins and it becomes instantly obvious that the event is over and it’s time for us to leave. We do understand, because there is much to do to set up the restaurant for dinner. So, we up and leave.
The wine has not significantly affected us, we are thankful to note, but we do feel the need to spend the rest of the afternoon quietly in our stateroom. A combination of quick naps, reading, and watching something on television occupies our time until dinner at the Grand Dining Room.
After that, it’s back to the room. The Atlantic Ocean has been producing nine-foot rolling swells, and the ship is meeting them at about a 30-degree angle. The resulting impact on the ship is both pitching and rolling, although neither is bothersome, and negotiating the halls and stairways is not difficult. The wonderful advantage, however, is that the motion gently rocks us to sleep.
November 23rd: What’s the expression? Wash, rinse, repeat? Well, that’s what we do today.
Our daily trip to Horizons does have a side benefit. Cathy spots Mirabelle there. We had said to each other after yesterday’s winetasting that we should have dinner with them, and this gives Cathy an opportunity to set that up. Mirabelle is enthusiastic and a date for 6:30 tonight is set.
Another hearty lunch at the GDR to prep for today’s 1:30pm winetasting event, World of Whites. Today we get to Toscana a few minutes early, are again seated with Nelson and Mirabelle, and do get an opportunity to chat briefly. We learn that Mirabelle is Cuban, and she and her family emigrated from (escaped from) Cuba to Florida in 1960. The subject arises because Steve is wearing his Spanish Community of Wallingford polo shirt. The subject of immigration comes up briefly, but is cut short by the beginning of today’s festivities.
Leonardo is still in great form. The same format prevails, of course, and he has another great PowerPoint presentation to go along with his lecture.
Here are the five wines we tasted, again listed in the order of the food we eat with them (i.e., as you see them on the plate, from left to right):
- Gavi de Gavi (from Piedmont) with an egg roll.
- Steinagrund (from Austria) with a seared scallop.
- Reisling Kabinett (from Germany) with a crabcake.
- Puligny Montrachet (from France) with turkey with rich, creamy mayonnaise.
- Chardonnay (from Napa Valley, California) with foie gras sushi. Which was yucky.
Leonardo’s presentation concludes with a fun set of slides describing the many ways that wine is healthy for us and lists the various health benefits. As a public service to those who are reading our words, we present eight of the the ten slides he shows:
That evening, we meet Nelson and Mirabelle at 6:30pm in the Grand Dining Room. They arrived a few minutes before us, and got themselves seated as soon as possible They did so because they were concerned that the line to get in was so long that, if they waited for us, we might not get a table. Nelson holds down the table as Mirabelle waits for us. Their action of being seated early pays off, as we go right to our table.
We have a delightful time. A traditional Thanksgiving dinner was available, and there was a carving station with a huge turkey being sliced by a chef. Very festive. The GDR was packed, most likely with guests that otherwise would have taken their meal at the Terrace Café. Even with so many more diners than usual, the service was excellent.
Our new friends live in a small town north of Jacksonville, Florida, and have for twenty years or so. Prior to that, they lived in one of the New Jersey suburbs across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. Nelson had an interesting job at the Campbell Soup Company plant in Camden, NJ. When the chefs there had developed a new soup that was to be mass-marketed, he was in charge of designing the process needed to scale up the production to the enormous quantities that would be sold. Mirabelle and he actually met at night school while both of them were studying accounting.
What a pleasant evening. Two very nice people with whom we had much in common. It was Sommelier Elaine’s salesmanship of the Winetastings that made this serendipitous meeting possible. An added bonus to tasting all those delicious wines – and learning how drinking wine is so good for our health!
