OUS SW France – Page 4 – OUS South West France

2017 events update

Our 2017 programme is up and running and members have been sent, or will be sent, details of the following future events by email:

A tasting visit to a local member’s chateau (Château Biac) with an on site buffet lunch, on Friday 1st September.
Our AGM on Tuesday 12th September at La Suite restaurant, Villeneuve sur Lot Golf & Country Club, 47290 Castelnaud de Gratecambe
A lunch on 4th November in Le Temple sur Lot organised by Jeremy James EDIT now postponed until Spring 2018,

As usual Marion will communicate details of these events as they firm up. If for some reason, you have not received the details please contact her.

Any member prepared to organise a lunch or other event of interest in his / her local area is of course welcome to do so or put forward ideas; with an influx of ‘new’ members recently joining our list, new opportunities for enjoyable social contact are just waiting to be explored!

Lot-et-Garonne Lunch, 26 May

Marion writes:

One of the great benefits of our OUS branch is that it gives its members a chance to meet, and then keep up with, many whom we might never otherwise have encountered – and to do so in a friendly and enjoyable manner. At the last AGM it was suggested that individual members might wish to organize informal events in their neighbourhoods : for those living close by, of course, but also for any others who might wish to attend.

It is with this objective in mind that Jeremy James proposes meeting for lunch in the village of Laroque-Timbaut (Lot-et-Garonne), on Friday 26th May.

Further details have been sent to members.

Meeting OUBC, January 3rd 2016.

Once again, thanks to Jeremy James, thirteen members and partners were able to meet the Boat Race crew during their annual training period at Le Temple-sur-Lot.

This was the third year for this event. The day went, as always, extremely well. Jeremy started it because he knew that OUBS trained on the Lot (one of the main rivers of southwestern France) every January and thought that it might be fun for both sides.

OUBC has already said how much the annual event is appreciated and that it looks forward to repeating it in 2017. It is an unfailingly delightful occasion much enjoyed by both sides, as the photo below testifies (click on it to enlarge)!

Pomerol

Our party of wine enthusiasts started the first cold day of the season (14th October) in the noisy sobriety of the barrel-making factory, Tonnellerie Sylvain. It might sound boring, but in fact, for some at least it was the highlight of the day, using mainly manual labour to work centuries-old oak from France’s public forests into some 33,000 barrels a year, 70% for export. Of course, given that all had been arranged by Marion and Pip, we did not lack for an inventive and appetising lunch at Catusseau or miss a well-organised tasting of fine Merlot (plus a little Cab. Sav.) at Château Clinet with its new vats and energetic marketing.

Toulouse Cruise

Nearly forty members and friends took to the locks of Toulouse on board the Occitania. As cruises go, this was not overwhelmingly sybaritic for either scenery (a lot of 60s HLMs/tower blocks, the Police Station and Haute Garonne Conseil Général’s Valhalla) or weather (how could Toulouse only muster 20 degrees on July 30th?).

But, and it’s a big but, we had a jolly good meal (with cruise booze of course) and most of all great company of our own making (typical of OUS SW France as a member noted), spiced up with good humoured local information from Pierre, our Captain for the day.

There were too many factoids for your webmaster to remember, except perhaps the enormous growth of Toulouse over the last ten years and the century plus that passed between the construction of the two canals linking the Atlantic and the Med.

We turned round in the basin where the Midi meets the Canal de Garonne and the Canal de la Brienne, and so our lock count for the day was six. All in fact a great success and our thanks to Pip for all the labours involved in getting it together with a not wholly responsive cruise company – evidently the only one offering serious catering on the whole canal.

IMG_2482 (1) — The Canal de Garonne begins here

Gersois gems: mosaics and tapestries

On 5th May, a large alumni group visited the substantial Roman villa at Séviac, near Montréal du Gers. After Anthony’s Comfort’s lucid introduction to what is known of the site’s history, the evident luxury of which somewhat belies the supposition that the late Roman era was one of decay, we were able to admire the extensive mosaics, baths and splendid plumbing. Thanks to fine timing by organiser Marion, there was also a gorgeous display of irises.

Lunch in the circular square of the lovely village of Fourcès followed. We were then led to the Château of M and Mme. Alban de Saint-Exupéry, who very kindly showed us round its treasures. Its walls are adorned by Aubusson tapestries, family portraits dating back to the 17th century and a huge original by the school of David, showing Marie-Therèse, the lone surviving daughter of Louis XVI, fleeing into exile. All this was within a classic château layout comparable to that in Henri IV’s Nérac nearby, but extended to avoid the rigours of the gersois winter.

Wine at Lou Gaillot, 17 April 2015

Wine tasting is a regular category of event for OUS SW France. It provides the opportunity to investigate and indeed savour the wide variety of wines that exist in this, one of the great wine-producing regions of the world.

Our visit to Lou Gaillot at Casseneuil (thanks to Jeremy James) enabled us to investigate and enjoy the results of ‘bio’ practices. This vineyard is outside the main appellations, on flat sandy land and a gentle slope by the Lot. Its owner, Gilles Pons, gave an exceptionally lucid presentation of the production processes and enabled us to understand the specific challenges that the commitment to ‘bio’ involves. We were intrigued by the post-WW2 concrete vats in the chai (no longer is use).

A convivial degustation and lunch followed and from the writer’s limited sample of members, we were keen buyers of the ‘Reserve’ wine.

Meeting the Boat Race Crew

This year’s Boat Race victory by the Dark Blues was particularly appreciated by those of us who met the crews last January at their training session on the waters of the Lot.

The 2015 edition of this event took place on 4th January. It had the added bonus of actually having more time to talk to crew members and their coaches over a protein-packed lunch, preceded by an apéritif.

Our Musical AGM

Thanks to Brian and Liz Berks for their organisation, we were able once again to make the AGM an event worth attending.

At the Priory of Mesnil St. Martin at Montaut de Villeréal (47), members and guests were able to enjoy a fine catered lunch and then hear a Chopin concert by the owner of the Priory and concert pianist and teacher, Emmanuel Laloë-Ferrer.

This was followed by the lighter touch of Stanley Hanks with songs about London and from his native Costa Rica.

Armagnac “pour les élèves”

It’s a long time since I (or any of us) were addressed as “élèves”; it brought me a smile and fleeting feeling of youth when our host M. Lafargue at his Ferme Auberge welcomed the “élèves d’Oxford” to his unpretentious salle à manger for a high quality lunch created from his own produce.

Before this long and sociable repast, 20 OUS members, partners and guests assembled in the bijou village of Lagraulet du Gers, admired the rather bizarre water-tower-cum work-of-art (now a gîte) and shivered in the unseasonal cold, before the main event.

Mme. Martine welcomed us to the chai of Domaine le Grand Chemin and explained patiently the processes involved in creating vintages of Vieil Armagnac (no blended versions here) before warming us up with a tasting session. Apéros made from eau de vie and Schweppes, a 2002 and a 1985 Armagnac, and canapés of rilletes, were all plentiful and well received.

The restoration of a ruined chateau in the heart of the village is nearing completion and is soon to open as a four-star hotel “Castel Pierre”; we were invited inside to admire the quality of materials and workmanship by the enthusiastic (if naïve?) young couple who had put two years labour and a princely sum into the project.

Our thanks are offered to Kathy Jarman, who has had her holiday home nearby for 25 years, for organising the visit and making it a success.

– pip