Coulon et Fils Île d'Oléron Sauvignon 2013 VdP

This year we spent a couple of days on the Île d'Oléron on the Atlantic coast of France in early September. The island is due south of La Rochelle and just to the north of the Bordeaux region. It is a great place for a holiday in September when most of the visitors have gone home but there are sufficient people around for the island not to be "dead". Winter is probably not the best time of year to go there because of Atlantic gales sweeping in from the west.

The seafood there was simply wonderful. I had oysters with every meal and there is a good range of Atlantic wet fish on the menu and I particularly liked the Sardines. It is also heaven if you like cockles and mussels. We gathered some lovely fresh cockles from the beach and steamed them until their shells opened and ate them with lemon. We did not need to soak them in water before cooking as they were not full of sand. The water on the beach looked very clean and there were plenty of local people collecting shellfish so we assumed that we were safe. We did not suffer from any after effects.

If you are absolutely certain that your cockles have not been exposed to polluted water then you can eat them raw like other of sorts of clams such as amandes de mer or dog cockles in English!

http://www.thefishsociety.co.uk/shop/amandes-de-mer.html

In Wales, where I was born, cockles are often eaten for breakfast and  cooked with bacon and lavabread: you also use lard to fry them. The bacon and lard obviously do not meet the approval of the World Health Organisation. The WHO would also recommend that you only consume 5 ml of wine with this delicious breakfast. I never drink wine in the morning I prefer tea. The next time I eat cockles and bacon it will be in the evening  and washed down with with a glass of smoky Sancerre to go with the bacon.

https://www.msc.org/cook-eat-enjoy/recipes/cockles-and-bacon
 
There was  no need to spend a lot of money to go with our fish on the Île d'Oléron because the local wine was perfect.

Coulon et Fils Île d'Oléron Sauvignon 2013 VdP is great white wine even if it is not as celebrated as its Sauvignon Blanc cousins to the south in Bordeaux. You can't find it anywhere in Britain and I have never seen it in a wine merchant other than on the island itself. If you want to try it then why not pay a visit? There are lovely villages on the island and miles of golden sand and oyster beds. It is a gastronomic heaven.

http://www.hachette-vins.com/guide-vins/les-vins/coulon-et-fils-ile-d-oleron-sauvignon-2007-2009/20096681/

Faulty wine

We opened a bottle of Fitou the other night and  felt a prickling sensation on the tongue. The wine was meant to be a still red. The wine was also undrinkable. It was obviously in poor condition so we poured it down the drain.

There was a production fault in this wine and somehow a secondary fermentation had occurred within the bottle to ruin it. Perhaps the bottles had not been sterilised properly before they had been filled. Whatever the reason the extra fermentation had ruined the feel and taste of the wine.

The wine was bought at a wine fair at a French supermarket and cost about 5 Euro a bottle - not cheap by French supermarket standards. Had we lived in France we would probably have taken the wine back for a refund but we had not lost much money.

It is not often that you buy a bottle of wine with this fault which can spoil even the most expensive wine. If you find yourself with an expensive bottle of wine that sparkles when it should not then do not hesitate to return it.