This week I experienced a moment of true happiness when, in the middle of a crazy work week of mind numbing strategic meetings, I escaped for a few hours of wine and cheese tasting at Bistro Champlain in the Quebec countryside.
My view stretched across a lake dotted with a few boaters while the dock was near empty but for a few dogs walking their humans and enjoying the pre "schools out" madness of cottage country.
In the Bistro I am surrounded by amazing works of art by Carson, and below me is a cellar of 18,000 bottles of wine. Far to many for me to drink in one sitting, but I was eager to try.
The wine steward and host was a wonderful man of great humor and hidden knowledge tucked away in folds of his wrinkled eyes. He delivered a centrepiece of cheeses and apples that looked too fine to eat. Cheeses my anglophone mouth could not pronounce but had no issue devouring,
the highlight being a 5 year old Gouda that activated taste buds that I thought long dead.
Champagne arrived, followed quickly by a 9 year old Chardonnay. Brilliant tastes of oak and apply danced across my pallet and flowed into my stomach, replacing the tension and stress that had sat there for days.
Then the reds arrived. Pinot Noir first - an aroma to lift your head off. Can we stop the world at this point because it just cant get better? But it did! 5 more wines followed, each one distinctly different and interacting with the cheeses in a most unexpected and creative manner. Dusty and mildewed labels revealed no hint of the pleasures they were protecting.
After a quick visit to the wine cellar, I settled back in my chair to finish off my new found liquid obsessions along with two wonderful colleagues who shared this surreal experience.
All talk of work was gone. Only mutual confusion as to why our lives are so regimented and stressed when paradise is all around us.
I didn't want to leave. It was upsetting, like being yanked back into existence after a near death experience, inches from Nirvana.
The drive back was filled with laughter and good natured opinions surrounding the wines and cheeses we experienced. But sadly, I surmise we all felt like something was left behind.
Maybe I will go back one day and look for it. Or maybe it was a moment never to be repeated beyond the retelling in stories and a knowledge that there is a different world of sights, sounds and tastes out there if we have the desire to seek it out.
M
My view stretched across a lake dotted with a few boaters while the dock was near empty but for a few dogs walking their humans and enjoying the pre "schools out" madness of cottage country.
In the Bistro I am surrounded by amazing works of art by Carson, and below me is a cellar of 18,000 bottles of wine. Far to many for me to drink in one sitting, but I was eager to try.
The wine steward and host was a wonderful man of great humor and hidden knowledge tucked away in folds of his wrinkled eyes. He delivered a centrepiece of cheeses and apples that looked too fine to eat. Cheeses my anglophone mouth could not pronounce but had no issue devouring,
the highlight being a 5 year old Gouda that activated taste buds that I thought long dead.
Champagne arrived, followed quickly by a 9 year old Chardonnay. Brilliant tastes of oak and apply danced across my pallet and flowed into my stomach, replacing the tension and stress that had sat there for days.
Then the reds arrived. Pinot Noir first - an aroma to lift your head off. Can we stop the world at this point because it just cant get better? But it did! 5 more wines followed, each one distinctly different and interacting with the cheeses in a most unexpected and creative manner. Dusty and mildewed labels revealed no hint of the pleasures they were protecting.
After a quick visit to the wine cellar, I settled back in my chair to finish off my new found liquid obsessions along with two wonderful colleagues who shared this surreal experience.
All talk of work was gone. Only mutual confusion as to why our lives are so regimented and stressed when paradise is all around us.
I didn't want to leave. It was upsetting, like being yanked back into existence after a near death experience, inches from Nirvana.
The drive back was filled with laughter and good natured opinions surrounding the wines and cheeses we experienced. But sadly, I surmise we all felt like something was left behind.
Maybe I will go back one day and look for it. Or maybe it was a moment never to be repeated beyond the retelling in stories and a knowledge that there is a different world of sights, sounds and tastes out there if we have the desire to seek it out.
M
Great to live in those moments. Unfortunately, we have far too few of them.
ReplyDeleteCheers