Champagne!

One of the advantages of being back in The Netherlands is that Piet regularly sees his old friends from his hometown Utrecht again. During Piet’s long stay abroad they developed a new passion: wine. They have their own, loosely organised wine tasting and purchasing group “Het Derde Glas”. They make a yearly trip to the Champagne area in north-eastern France, to taste, and, if it pleases their taste buds, to buy some bottles. This time they asked Piet to come along as well.

So on Wednesday after work he reported in Utrecht, and with a minibus and a car they drove to St. Quentin and stayed overnight. The next morning we started just west of Reims, with the first independent winemaker. The pattern was generally the same: we tasted the 3, 4 or 5 different champagnes that are produced (lot’s of spitting to keep our sanity throughout the day), the taste is discussed (yoghurt, nuts, strawberries, dry bread, a discussion far above Piet’s abilities) and a widely varying purchase is made. A large spreadsheet was kept to register everybody’s bottle counts, and to help splitting the bounty at the end.

Throughout 2 days we slowly descended to Troyes, and in the end visited 12 wineries in the region. It was very early in the season, and the farmers were just finishing the pruning of the grapevines, so the landscape was still lacking some green. That this industry is doing well was demonstrated by the small town of Epernay, where the Avenue de Champagne is lined with stately mansions, all owned by the large champagne houses. Piet also gained some background info on making champagne through 2 tours of the cellars, guided by the proud owners of the grapes, the process and the ultimate bottles.

In the end we had a lot of fun, and we bought quite a lot of bottles, which should last until the next trip. On Saturday morning the group split, Piet drove back with the treasure in the minibus, and the car continued to Chablis and Bourgogne for a day of some "real" wine. Everything was left in a spare room hidden underneath a sheet, at a secret location in Utrecht, to be split and sorted by a trustworthy member of the party….

Bare hillsides, waiting for the grapevines to start growing

Tasting and discussing the different champagnes at Huot et Fils

One of the winemakers that we honoured with a visit

Bethon, one of the many typical villages in the Champagne area

The City-Pier-City Run

This weekend the City-Pier-City Run was held, the largest sport event of The Hague. Originally this was a half marathon, but nowadays it is a whole day with different runs, and tens of thousands of participants. Through the school all 4 of us registered, and Piet did quite a lot of running the last few months, slowly building up after 5 years of abstinence due to his "Borneo Ballbreaker" knee injury.

On the day it was different though; Piet and Mary were both injured! Piet strained a calf muscle a few days before, and Mary has already been struggling for months with (what recently turned out to be) a slipped disk. So no 10 km for them. The weather was great, it was the first weekend of spring, and everybody was out on the bike. Paula and Dorien did the 5 km run, starting off with some of their friends (and 5000 other people), and finishing together. No problem for both of them!

In the afternoon we also watched the real race, passing close by the house. All the athletes were either Kenyan or Ethiopian, and were running their half marathon like it was a sprint. Just legs and lungs, impressive!

Paula and Dorien finishing their 5 km run

After the race