hummm, Domaine Weinbach, I have fond and amused memories of Madame Faller... Here wine is one of the benchmarks in Alsace, as taught to me by one of my friend who was studying oenology when we were in our very early twenties.
I am originated from Alsace but knew nearly nothing about wine at that time and an older friend of mine, and Englishman, asked me to tour some wineries during a week-end. So naturally we went to Mrs Faller's extremely beautiful farm near Ribeauvillé, almost a castle, me wearing red shorts and driving my already old and not so well maintained FIAT Uno. We parked on the gravel just on the front door and were greated by a very pretty maid in standard B&W maid dress, who asked us to wait in the reception room whose walls were covered with pictures on a bald man (Monsieur Faller) shaking hands with all the presidents of the French's 5th Republic (the list consisted of de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterand and Chirac at that time). The maid said that Madame would come down to meet us and indeed, after nearly an hour an aged but extremely elegant woman (I still remember her incredible dress) appeared and welcomed us with nice words.
When she figured out who we were and what we were here for (to taste her wine!), she understood that the business potential was not what she had expected and we were immediately taken to the kitchen where we generously got the opportunity to taste her Riesling. Again, I had no understanding of wine and especially lacked the words to describe it, so when she asked me what I thought about it I said I liked it because it was liquorous. Of course now I know that this is totally inappropriate, as she taught me by yelling at me in a manner not really matching the elegance of her dress. At some point she nearly collapsed...
We took advantage of this to leave as quick as we could and were not given a chance to purchase a bottle, what a pity!
This was the day when I decided to learn more about wine, and especially its vocabulary.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to think again about that very good day we had in the vineyard...
