Longish wait in KLIA

Dateline Fri Jun 17, 2032hrs: Just like the Tom Hanks' "The Terminal" or the Kath & Kim ep where they never left the airport. I've been here at Kuala Lumpur international airport for 12 hours now. I hadn't packed my laptop power supply so work was truncated, and the wifi is patchy so still off the grid even using my mobile devices. So for the record it's 8.32pm in KL.

Still, after getting in at 6am from Paris, trouble getting a burger;


a foot massage, some wandering, an hour sleeping on benches and five in a transit hotel, then a bowl of beef noodles and some more wandering, I'm here at the Satay club with only about two hours to wait.


And the satay at B9 looks good.


I suppose I did manage to buy some cigarettes for a bud, ties for myself and pashminas for my lovely wife.

Home soon I suppose. And relatively refreshed.


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Chilling in St Jean

Well, one can never guess it can one? Le bureau de tourisme told me I only needed to be at the station fifteen minutes before the train left.


So two hours should be plenty. But I wouldn't have missed that beautiful relaxed lunch in Bordeaux for anything.


But I hadn't counted on "le pont", the public holiday. Everyone wants to go back to Paris tonight. So it appears I won't be. I'll be spending the night in a hotel across the road and leaving at 7am.


Some time to chill. Still it's a little $70 room and the "no show" charge for the Paris room is $85. And part of the experience. A nice chance to have another fantastic French meal.


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Maccas didn't quite work out

Man I was up for it. But the promise just didn't look like it was going to be delivered. I know McDonalds like to be called "quick service restaurants" but the promise was once "fast food". And this doesn't look like "fast".


So a walk down the road to a tapas bar and I got some food.


But it probably doesnt spell the end of maccas. The lines were long.


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Fungicide named after a wine region

"Entre de mer" "between two seas"  was originally " between two tides, the Garonne and the Dordogne rivers in Bordeaux. Mostly Merlot and some Cabernet Franc.

"Bordeaux mix" I get it now. Copper sulphate and lime, mixed with water and sprayed to inhibit fungus on vines. Being here in Bordeaux right now I can see how it's necessary - this summer is humid at times.

Note the rose to the left of the vine row. The canary in the coalmine. When the rose starts getting black spot it's time to start thinking about breaking out the fungicide.

Nature will out

Everywhere I look I see it. I agree with the philosophy of Gaia, if not always the conclusions and recommendations flowing from some of the arguments.


But I come to a landscaped garden here, nice as you like. Someone obviously put a lot of energy into this. Nature takes the free kick when she can. But I look a little closer and see the pool teeming with tadpoles or little fish.


Nature doesn't care. She'll find a way. With or without us. I wonder how we'll go?


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The Terroir

The little village of St Emilion has interesting soil. And the way the vignerons feel about making wine, it suits.

They say "the vine must struggle for life" and everything I saw today seems consistent with that. I saw no irrigation, so the vines survive on natural rainfall. Then there's the soil structure. They said it's a gravelly loam, then at about 1.5m there's a very thick (metres) layer of limestone which let's the water seep through it, then heavy clay. Much of the limestone was extracted for construction, which meant there were stones on the top (buildings) and holes underneath. Holes that got used as underground monuments and cellars.

So the vines put their roots down easily through the loam and as they get older, they force their roots into the porous limestone. So I would guess the little vines have great resilience. When we were down in the cellars I saw the evidence - a great deal of very fine roots making their way into the cave through the limestone walls.

This is certainly a place that is perfectly designed for making wine. A combination of soil, weather, culture that makes it just right. The word for it is "Terroir". So I finish with the lament of my new French friend Jean-Eric Pelet who saw a modern trendy cafe in St Emilion:

 

Where is the terroir?

 Oh, there it is...

Making wine in France and in Australia is very different!

I can't help myself. I can see why the French and Australian wines are so different. A visit to a winery here in the village of St Emilion in Bordeaux helped me understand.

Lovely Merlot, a lot bigger bunches than I have at home:

Pre ferment carbonic maceration and fermentation with wild yeast. Using a water jacket to heat the must to about 30 degC for fermentation

 Re-mix the pressings back in to add strength. They simply send off 20% of their ferment to industrial users - distiller medical alcohol etc - because it doesn't make the grade for them.

They only re-use 20% of their aging barrels and send the rest out too. He talks about "tannin support" and "acid support" which is a very nice way to think  of it.

In St Emilion the limestone was heavily extracted in mediaeval times which left a big hole that could serve as a cellar. And this winery uses it beautifully.

When we tasted their 2009 it was every bit as nice as you'd expect. It's rare that I taste a wine and consider it's worth the price they're asking, but this $180 per bottle wine was worth it. Strangely enough they only prced their 2008 at about $80. They really consider the quality of their wine.