Le Couvent Diary

Hey look at this. While we've spent the winter pretending to be vigneronnes, our good friends Hans & Christa at Domaine Bourdic have been preparing proper wine for the guests of Le Couvent, Roujan. Here's the new rosé looking gorgeous.

 

 

It's a much lighter colour than previous years, has the addition of Grenache and is just delectable. Perfect for a cool glass as you arrive at Le Couvent, Roujan. There'll be a bottle waiting for you in your room as a welcome from Ali & I. We hope you enjoy it.

If rosé is not quite to your taste we have a luscious 2004 Le Mori, also from Domaine Bourdic. Here it is with the rosé, looking smart in its black & white livery.

 

 

 

Ok, so we're not officially open until 1 May, but this exceptional week we have a group of Black & Asian writers staying, working on their films, stage plays, radio plays, TV dramas & books. They're all jolly well known, and they're just lovely and very interesting. We had supper together last night with the writers and our chums Nicola & Teddy who've arranged this particular jape. They do lunch & supper and we have everyone to breakfast. Lucky us eh?

 

 

I have a personal challenge to see how many different fruits I can serve at breakfast and the current record is 13. It's early in the year so I wasn't being too hopeful but I managed passion fruit, kiwi, physalis, melons, oranges, apples, strawberries, pineapples, star fruit & bananas this morning. That's 10. The record looks in danger this year now that we have Chateau Mal Au Dos where the fruit grows in abundance.

Crikey, is it as cold where you are as it is here? We have a ferocious wind blowing straight off the snowy heights of the Massif Centrale and it's perishing. I'm a bit worried about my tomatoes. They were described as precocious by the man at the market who sold them to me, but they'd need to be stalwart to survive this onslaught.

Flynn the husky, despite still having his winter coat, has decided to stay in today.

 

Ali's in the middle of framing a gazillion more pictures and photos. We'll have to move - there certainly isn't wall space to hang them all, despite Le Couvent being a fair old size.

 

 

 

Our lovely neighbour, Maria, has just made her daily visit with bread for the hens. She's rescued a huge pot of geraniums that have dived off our gatepost ahead of the gale. I'd just put them back there after the winter, in readiness for our first guests who arrive on Tuesday. We've spent the past week spring cleaning ready for the season. Between our two cleaners, Patricia & Sophie & Ali & I, we managed to spend 28 hours cleaning on Friday. Yikes. Just a few more curtains to go back up and we're there I think. A cup of tea or coffee anyone?

 

 

It didn't start well. The four of us in the car were arguing about where exactly the restaurant was. We'd pulled up outside a huge wine factory and the signs for Bistrot d'Alex ran out, only to be replaced with dozens of others saying 'Vinipolis'.

I, because I am a Virgo and therefore always right, and because I'd looked it up on the internet moments before, insisted we were in the right place and to just park. The others didn't believe me. I was right, of course. This new restaurant is part of the wine factory and looks like the entrance to a small modern airport. Sliding doors usher you in, then you stop dead. The floors have a colossal section which is glass, so you can look down on hundreds of wine barrels many feet below. I'm not good at visual cliffs, so tiptoed round to firmer ground.

 

 

Photo pinched from Cwiosna CABANE - Merci.

We were at this new restaurant to celebrate the birthday of our friend Jackie Devereux . And what a find it is. If you can get past the place looking like the works canteen at IBM and concentrate on the food and the price of said food, you'll find it excellent. In a huge, lofty and airy space, with spacious seating for about sixty or so people, jolly waiting staff serve excellent food of the region. I had six of the freshest oysters from the Bassin de Thau served on a bed of ice, guinea fowl with the creamiest risotto I've ever tasted followed by a dish of strawberries prepared five different ways. Everything was beautifully, cleanly presented and perfectly cooked. For 18.50 euros. That's £14.36 at today's rotten exchange rate. The wines are largely from the cave co-operative which is part of this Vinipolis complex and are good and well priced.

We're on a winner here for at least another six months if they don't do something about the signage. No-one will be able to find it, so we should be fine for a table. Yesterday was Sunday, however, and the restaurant was full to the gunnels with savvy french locals all keeping quiet about the place. If you're coming to stay at Le Couvent, Roujan I'd advise you to ask us to book you a table well in advance. They could be making funky new signs as I write.

Just occasionally something completely unexpected happens in Roujan and it happened again last night. We got to witness an amazing cultural event way beyond that that you'd expect in a small village in deepest Languedoc..

Thanks to our friends Anne & Fran at La Maison Verte over the road we went to a fantastic concert in the church, just 150 metres away. Anne & Fran had heard that a choir of fifty girls from Hungary would be on their way to Spain to take part in a competition. La Maison Verte is huge so A&F invited the choir to spend a stopover night there. In exchange the girls gave a free concert, despite having spent 26 hours in a coach and arriving in Roujan a mere 3.5 hours before the event.

Wow, but were they good. They were extraordinary. Here's a video that does them no favours visually, but will give you a flavour of them. This piece is a bit frivolous in comparison with some of the beautiful Renaissance music they treated us to last night. I doubt there was a single person in the audience who didn't have shiny eyes and a skin tingle. Thank you Pro Musica from Nyíregháza in Hungary . Hála. Szerencse a versenyben.