Arles Cooking Class

I worked in Brussels on a Y2K remediation project in late spring and summer of 1999. The summer holiday season landed in the middle of the project and I convinced the client that it would be cheaper to pay my $250/day per diem than to fly me back and forth to the states on business class. I quickly found a bike tour of the Dordogne to go on and afterwards I took a cooking and wine tasting class in Arles, France. It was an interesting class. We'd go around to nearby Rhone valley wineries in the morning to taste wine, and then we'd cook dinner in the afternoons. The class only had a few people in it, so we really got to do a lot.

A couple of things stood out (apart from the food):

• We stopped by the side of the road one morning and the husband got out and picked some fresh bay leaves off a neighbor's tree. I had never thought that bay leaves might come from a backyard tree before.
• We went to a winery that exclusively produced rose wines. Prior to this I had firmly put rose and blush wines in the jug wine and cheap categories. I learned that a good rose is amazing on a hot summer day.
• I wasn't really sure of my ability to taste wines at the time, and I learned that I could tell if a wine was something special. Not that I am a wine taster or anything, but when I tasted the wine at Domaine St. Cere (I think), I just knew that it would be amazing in 5 years or so. Unfortunately, they didn't have a distributor in the US, so I never got to buy any.