Day 86

Drinkin Wine wit ma Homies . . . Carl Douglas and the Gangster Ass Wine Tour.

Ok, folks, this one is going to require some explanation.  First off, the song.  One of my favorites.  An oldie but a goodie.  Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting".  A great song from a great year.  1974 to be exact . . . the year of my birth.  In addition, the video is a montage from one of my favorite movies that oddly enough I watched just last night.  There has to be some cosmic significance to all of this, but we will get to that in a minute.  For those who have not seen the movie, Kung Fu Hustle is a must see.  Steven Chow is a genius.

Enough of the pleasantries, lets get down to business.  This day was one for the record books.  A day full of mystery, adventure and attempted homicide.  I wish there was a joke in there somewhere, but there isn't.  The day started off innocently enough.  A couple of our friends came over to join us for a morning brocante and an afternoon wine tour.  The brocante took place just down the street from our home and was absolutely packed full with vendors selling their wares.  The highlight for me was getting to thumb through the pages of an 1800 French Dictionary (still thinking I should have bought it for 20 bucks) and having the opportunity to haggle a price on a new man purse for my eldest.  Nothing like a good garage sale to get the blood pumping in the morning.  A quick pitstop back by the house to drop off our purchases and we were soon aboard the Renault and on our way to our next destination.  Every two years, the wineries in Pomerol open their doors to the public for tours and wine tasting.  We had been made aware of this occasion by a collegue of my wife and decided to invite a couple of our friends to join us in an adult afternoon outing.

Since the brocante took up a fair share of the morning, we decided to stop in the village where my wife works to have a bite for lunch.  After a quick walking tour, we settled in outside of a small cafe just off the main pedestrian center of the city.  As I am sure you already know by now, social decorum dictates that you take an hour or so to enjoy your lunch since every other form of commerce will be closed for this hour.  The food turned out to be quite good and we enjoyed our meal and some light conversation.  The scene would soon turn to a bloody mess and we would witness an act of brutality the likes of which I cannot even begin to describe.  If an ambulance hadn't coincidently passed by with its siren in full song, we would have certainly witnessed a murder.  Since the argument was in French (and ethnic slang at that), I have no idea what the hell was going on.  All I do know is that shit got REALLY bad, REALLY fast.  Raised voices gave way to screaming and soon three or four younger men were brutally beating an older man to the edge of death, not two or three tables away from us.  Bread knives were pulled off of tables to be used as weapons, a discarded pry bar utilized as a bludgeoning tool, and ultimately a large glass water bottle was smashed over the older gentleman's skull.  When he finally went down in a pool of blood, the beating became frenzied and a bar chair was shattered over his already bleading face.

All patrons quickly took refuge inside of the cafe at the request of the wait staff, only to find the fight immdiately follow us into very cramped quarters.  Fortunately, it was at this time that the ambulance happened by and the siren seemed to break up the beating long enough for the participants to be separated.  Hence the use of "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas rather than "Murder was the Case" by Snoop Dogg.  The manager of the cafe had called the authorities at my wife's request and soon gave medical aid to the bleeding victim now seated at the bar.  The main antagonist seemed to be a young man in a hoodie who eventually fled on foot when the police arrived.  The police gave chase and we took the pause in action as our invitation to get the f_ _ _ out of Dodge.  We found out in passing, that this was in fact an example of gang violence and is apparently not all that unusual in the area.  So, after some further consideration, we have decided not to move to the hood rich village where my wife works.  The last thing I need is for some ethnic thug to go all 187 on my hillbilly ass in the mean streets of what I now affectionately refer to as French Compton.

Not to be put off of our wine by a small gang war, we soon found ourselves at peace again in the countryside.  Our first stop was a wonderful winery with an informative tour.  Informative, not in the winemaking sense, but rather as a good litmus test for my grasp of the language as things now stand.  I actually understood a fair amount and enjoyed the event thoroughly.  The smell of the barrel room at this stop was amazing and if there was a way to for me to bottle it and sell it, I too would be a rich man.  This particular vinyard had been with this family for just short of a century.  The tasting room, however, resided in a structure originally owned by one of Napoleon's Generals.  A nice bit of wine and an even better history lesson.

The next stop was better still.  We had a personal connection at this stop, that I hope will lead to marvelous opportunities and relationships in the future.  There were a number of reasons this would be a unique expernience.  First, since the proprietor was a friend of my wife's collegue . . . (long story and very facinating, but don't have time for it here . . . will share when the time is right) we got a very personal tour of the winery by the owner himself.  This tour would be in English.   The owner is quite fluent and was very willing to give us a very passionate explanation of the process for making his particular brand of red wine.  What makes it so unique?  It is what they call BIO.  Organic is the term we would use and the process is facinating.  So passionate is he, that he in fact still works the fields himself to ensure the quality of his product.  This is a product that must be created within very strict guidelines which are made even more difficult to attain when doing so "organically".  I wish I had the time and space to share all I learned today, but it will suffice to say that we had a magnificent time and i look forward to going back for more.  Time flies as they say, and soon we were forced to retire for the evening as school comes mighty early in the morning.  Mighty early in deed.  Until tomorrow.  Cheers.