Fermented Peregrinations
 

A big aspect of my travels is imbibing not only in local culture but local wines, beers and booze - for which Europe is so so famous. I like unique pubs, cafes, winery and brewery tours, beer halls, beer gardens - so my trip report - an amalgam over years of such visits will include reports on such things as:

Champagne ours in France
Sheery ours in Jerez, Spain
Port Wine tours in Porto, Portugal
Brewery tours in Holland, Germany and Denmark
Winery visits in the Loire and Burgundy and Bordeaux in France
Visits to German beer halls and gardens
Wine festivals along the Mosel in Germany
British pubs
Buckfast Abbey, Britain
Montserrat, Spain
Genever tastings in Holland
Brown Cafes in Amsterdam
Heuringen in Vienna
Cidre visits in Normandy
Etc.

I would especially like to hear from others' fermented peregrinations as well!

TBC after I sober up!

ttt bottoms up

One of my most interesting visits was to the Chartreuse cellars in Voiron, France.

http://www.chartreuse.fr/index.php?lang=uk&accueil=1

I did not know falcons had their own nation.

Pal...are you referring to Buckfastleigh and Buckfast Abbey in Cornwall?
30 years ago, On my way to see some wild ponies in Dartmoor NP, I drove right by it...what did I miss?
stu

I've been to far too many tasting and wine events to start listing them here but the strangest is the one at Torres outside Barcelona. We (being tight about cash) walked from the station to Torees (about 2 km) and ended up as the almost the only people going round their tour. The gardens are lovely and almost without signs (I guess taxi drivers know where to go to) finally we find the place, go inside and from the documents around discover that Disney had been hired to give the place a bit of pizaz. Anyway we walk through the tunnel of smells (I kid you not) and then around the wine production area which is cut into a hill so no juice is ever pumped it just runs naturally down hill through the processes. The result is the views are fantastic.

We end up at the tasting area and meet two other people. Very tall, blond couple who ask our advice. They were texans and claimed that before they left for Europe they would claim to be Canadians on the trip because "everyone hates George Bush in Europe". Did we think they should carry on? Controlling my need to say "hate you mean laugh at" etc we calmed them down and said not to worry, you can claim to be anything you like on holiday.

Great tasting as they poured out the Black label reserva rather than the cheap stuff as so few people were around that day.

tower - when I visited buckfastleight (thnaks for correcting my spelling) the monks were selling some potent brew the conjured up - high in alcoholic content - made on site of course - in the monastic tradition from medieval times when monks consumed an unGodly amount of booze each day - like liters of beer or wine - all to help them communicate with God, I guess.

Buckie appears to be a major drink in Glasgow mixed with IrnBrew (a bright orange fizzy substance) it is knocked back and I assume vomited up by the city's feral youth. The product made it onto BBC Radio 4's Lesbian comedy show the hilarious News Quiz

kerouac, define "interesting". :)

I think I experienced the Chartreuse tour and tasting at too young an age, when I'd neither enough worldly experience nor a mature set of taste buds! (At that age, I favored sickly-sweet concoctions - I remember preferring their Framboise to the green stuff!) Sadly, where Chartreuse is concerned, to this day my taste buds still rebel...

PalenQ, I've done a number of the things on your list. Of course, there are always more countries to visit and more fermentations to taste!

I'd love to visit distilleries in Scotland: A friend once had a 3-course Scotch tasting, with regional selections paired to food that went well with each; it would be great to recreate the tastings on the ground!

Then there's eau de vie, kirsch, schnaps, grappa; Belgian beers... So many tastes to sample, so little time! Only just 10am here - not exactly the time of day I start thinking about these things. ;)

Retsina in Athens.

Retsina in Athens.>

yes yes - I forgot to mention the Daphni Wine Festival in suburban Athens - a Bacchanalia Fest par excellence I thoroughly enjoyed.
http://www.greeceathensaegeaninfo.co...WINE-guide.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_Tonic_Wine

Tower - no it says Buckfast Abbey in Devon - the one I went to and the monks invented some kind of elixir wine there that later became popular in Scotland, according to Wiki!

We fell in love with a white wine named Alisar (or similar spelling) way back in the 1980s--never did find it in the states and gave up.

Anyone know if that has changed in our global economy? Off to google!

A visit to the Lone Star Brewery in San Antonio in the 70s. The manager thought they'd struck gold with a visiting Australian and despite my protestations that I was not a big drinker I felt I had to conform to expectations and give them what they wanted in their sampling survey. I wonder whether the faulty market research contributed to their closure.