A sip of rosé propels me back to winding cobblestone streets, open-air cafés, the warmth of a Mediterranean night and the familiar yet always alluring cadence of French parlance. Rosé, the wine of Provence, brings back a rush of sensory memories so strong I want to open my eyes and be back at the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, laughing at a fountain with my study abroad friends, sipping wine out of our water bottles as we profiter de la vie.
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| At O'Sullivan's with our verres de rosé |
Last week I attended a rosé tasting at the Alliance Française de Chicago, specifically focused on the rosé of Provence, my second hometown. While the presenter was extremely knowledgeable and approachable, guiding us through the scents and tastes of each wine, explaining how they can be paired with food, and sharing some delightful stories, for me each wine went beyond the little tasting room in Chicago.
The first wine, the lightest and most acidic, was a typical apéritif wine perfect to prepare the palette for dinner. Once the bouquet hit my nose, I found myself back on the tiny balcony of my host apartment. A glass of chilled rosé, barely pink, balanced in my hands while having an end-of-the-day conversation with my host mother Frédérique. Recalling a bit of Marius and Pagnol's iconic Marseille that we discussed in class, sharing stories about the students I worked with at the local collège, opening-up about the University I came from and my lifestyle in America. The rich accent and slightly nasal vowels slipping off my tongue in a particular familiarity, sometimes forgetting what it felt like to even think in English.
The second wine (my favorite) brought a fuller bouquet, more body, evoking the wine I ordered on Wednesday evenings at O'Sullivan's sitting at a wooden table in the square crowded with my friends, American and French alike. Our rickety table balanced against the fountain, holding at least 4 glasses of the house rosé as we laughed about cultural misunderstandings and French habits, all the while soaking in the nightly promenade of teenage girls in ridiculously high ankle boots, children out for an evening walk with their parents, the group of Navy sailors singing another song involving too many loud voices and an uncomfortable amount of shouting, the crowds of American students drawing far too much attention to themselves in their obnoxious American accents and garish gestures (and praying we did not look like them).
A sip of the third, much tinnier in flavor than the previous two, mirrored the large bottle I would buy each Friday evening at the Mono-Prix before meeting up with my friends in a nearby alley to transfer the wines oh-so-secretly into our large water bottles. Preparing for a pique-nique of assorted vegetables, a fresh baguette, the cheapest brie we could find at the store, and most likely some smoked salmon. Each of us lying out our dinner offerings on the fountain's edge, assembling some kind of meal from our small student budgets while working our way through a bottle of rosé by 2am. Foreign exchange students without an apartment of our own to have dinner in, but also too cheap to go to a restaurant every weekend when we were kicked out by our host families as part of the "five dinner a week" contract. Never mind the hodgepodge of our meal or the odd locale of our dining spot, those quiet evenings by the fountain, enjoying our rosé and casually trading French slang and newly minted vocabulary words, were some of the most idyllic.
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| Sometimes we also went in the fountains. |
By the fourth wine, I am feeling a little tipsy, needing more than just a little round of baguette and ratatouille. And so this wine's flavors don't invoke a specific memory, but rather the warm heady emotion of simply living in France: hearing French spoken by passerbys, wandering to the market on a weekday afternoon to pick-up a head of lettuce and a fresh baguette, wishing I had a small French child to call my own just for the day so I could hear the adorable pronunciation of the petit Français. The overwhelming sensation that no matter how difficult it became to let-go of my American habits, or how many questions and frustrations I had about my cultural competence and trying to live in a different country; despite the headache from over-thinking every encounter with a French person or analyzing my walk to the café to order a noisette, that each day was a literal dream come true. No one could take away those moments from
me, the magic they brought, the unique and individual immersion I had in the French culture. Even when crying over cultural shock or fatigue, I never forgot how blessed I was to live in that reality. To call France my home.
And that is why each day that September gets closer I get a little rush in my heart, a brief out-of-body jolt because I know my dream will come true again. And how many people can say they have lived out their almost 20-year-old dream twice in their life? Maybe I should start selling that rosé wine…you would buy it after that story, right?
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| Our "wine coach" |
The Wines We Tasted
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| Wine One: Saint Roches Les Vignes |
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| Wine Two: it looks like this…haha |
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| Wine Three: Domaine d'Eole, Wine Four: Chateau de St. Martin |
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