Llivia and The Can Ventura Restaurant

During our September trip to the south of France we paid a visit to the Spanish enclave of Llivia which is situated close to the border of Catalonia, Spain in the French Department of Pyrénées-Orientales. The town of Llivia is very close, about 2 Km, to the French town of Bourge-Madame which itself is situated right on the border with Spain. The municipality is located on a small plain in the hills at an elevation of about 1200m.

There are no border posts and the only way you can tell that you have left France and entered Spain is by the change to the road signs.

Llivia is about 13 sq kilometres in area and it has about 1500 inhabitants and most of them speak Catalan. Many of its citizens also speak French.

http://www.exclave.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=9

We paid a visit on a very sunny Sunday afternoon and dined in the Can Ventura restaurant on Plaza Major. We had a wonderful meal of local saucisson, lamb and creme catalan washed down with a pichet of red Catalan wine.

The service was great and the atmosphere was very friendly. There was a large family eating on our floor but we were not neglected by the waitress. It was apparent that the family straddled the border as half were speaking Catalan and the other half French but French was the lingua franca.

The food and wine deserved  a prize especially when it came to value for money; we paid just 60 Euro for one of the best meals that we had on our trip. The restaurant only merits two knives and forks from the Michelin guide but it merits more from me. I guess that it loses a fork or two because it does does not go in for fancy presentation; they are more committed to taste. It's a pity that the Michelin judges don't recognise this more.

http://www.canventura.com/

If ever you are near the Spanish border in the French department of Pyrénées-Orientales then Llivia and the Can Ventura are worth a diversion and a visit.

We walked up to a view point and flying above us was a pair of Lammergeiers perhaps they thought that we had eaten too much and that we were about to expire - they are exquisite fliers.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ll%C3%ADvia

Château Prieuré-Lichine 4ème Cru Classé Margaux 1998 red and Qupé 2012 Syrah Californian red

We had a dinner party with some relatives, who brought along a bottle of Château Prieuré-Lichine 4ème Cru Classé Margaux red, and some good friends. The Prieuré-Lichine is one of my favourite wines from Margaux. It has typical Margaux taste and concentration and it is silky smooth. This wine went down well with some roast pork.

On such an auspicious occasion I thought that I would open a top quality red wine from the USA - Qupé 2012 Syrah from the Californian Central Coast and this, too, is a favourite wine of mine. My family from France rarely get an opportunity to drink any sort of American wine let alone a very good one. I have never seen Qupé 2012 Syrah on sale anywhere in France. We also drank this wine with the pork as there were six of us.

How can you compare these wines for quality and taste as they are from different countries with different traditions?

The Margaux 1998 had matured much longer and I doubt that the Qupé would be at its best after 17 years. The American wine was designed and produced to be consumed younger.

The Margaux had a taste of its own but of course it was easily recognisable as a fine Bordeaux. The Qupé was reminiscent of a French Syrah from the South of France but it had a quality all of its own with a concentrated red fruit flavour with a little bit of spice.

Both of these wines were made to go with good food and were not meant to be slugged back at a party. It is really difficult to say which was the better wine and it was obvious that the winemakers were proud of their product. The Old world and the New united to produce high quality wines. This is what wine-making is all about: they are  little bit more expensive - in the UK the Bordeaux is over £20 pounds a bottle and the Qupé can be found for just under. Of course both these wines are better value for money in their home countries.

We British are lucky, however, as it is easy to find great wines from all over the world - you can't do this in France as easily.


http://www.prieure-lichine.fr/

http://www.wine.com/v6/Qupe-Central-Coast-Syrah-2012/wine/132909/Detail.aspx?state=CA