Un petit poison, well chilled

The taste of summer in Provence: tomatoes and tapenade, cherries and Cavaillon melon, pastis and chilled rose.

Naturally, when I arrived home on a warm afternoon at the beginning of July, I quickly opened a cool, pink Tavel 2011 to drink while I unpacked.  Two sips later, I had a sudden headache so massive the word "stroke" bubbled up from my hypochondriac soul. I recorked the bottle, tried not to panic and went straight to bed. The headache lasted three days. 

I did not immediately attribute the headache to the wine.  I figured it was fatigue, some poisonous pollen generating an allergic reaction or just the routine migraine that strikes from time to time. But I have to admit,   that lovely, ruby-red liquid with a sketch of a Provencal Mas on the label, suddenly did not look so rosy.

After a few days it was time to pour it out.  As I dumped three-quarters of the bottle down the drain, the fumes rose from the sink and I inhaled. Once again, I was struck with a sudden, massive headache. Again, the headache lasted nearly three days.  Suddenly, that seductive bottle of wine looked malicious.  I didn't mention this to anyone, but I quietly switched to whites, reds, water and the periodic cold Coke Light for the rest of the month.

Last weekend, the August 4-5 edition of the International Herald Tribune carried a story on wine additives, the international debate over the terms "organic" and "natural" and new European Union rules on wine labels. Halfway through Eric Pfanner's fine piece, "The lack of veritas in vino," I ran across this:

"The new labeling comes with stricter rules, including a reduction in the permitted levels of sulfur dioxide, which can cause allergic reactions in asthma sufferers. (Some critics say sulfur dioxide, low levels of which are naturally present in many wines, also causes headaches, though I have yet to see conclusive evidence of this.)"

There may be an absence of randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical studies, but I gathered the only evidence I need standing over my kitchen sink.  Whatever was in that wine -- sulfur dioxide or some noxious combination of other ingredients -- made me very sick. Twice.

I'm going to choose more carefully. I'm going to read labels.  But here's the problem: unlike most foods and beverages sold in France and the United States, wine is not required to list ingredients on the label. And, as it turns out, there are a lot of potential ingredients to list. In fact, the EU permits 59 things to be added to wine.  Even wine labeled as "organic" in the States just means the grapes were farmed without using chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides but it does not indicate what other mysterious additives may have been used.

On the label of my toxic rose was quite a bit of info, including a little map of Tavel, the eight grape varieties blended to make the wine, a list of the foods most suitable to the wine and a description of the wine's flavor, "raspberries and white flowers."  I'd describe it now as "slightly sulfurous with just a hint of Bhopal."

Happily, in the United States, sulfur dioxide is one of the additives that must be disclosed with the nearly ubiquitous footnote, "contains sulfites." I'm going to be quite careful about searching for "cleaner" wines. And I'll also be monitoring closely the discussions between Europe and the United States over wine labeling which are continuing this fall.   

Cheers. 

Breakfast, late July, Provence

No Artificial Coloring or Preservatives

Three peches jaunes from the farmer down the road to my outdoor breakfast table this morning.  Having missed the season for Stonewall peaches this year (sweeter, but not as pretty), I've been especially happy to see these coming in over the last three weeks. 

I shot this before I gobbled down two, but didn't post until after my second cup of coffee.

At Your Service/A Votre Service

Life in France is all about the details.  The same could be said for life anywhere, I suppose, but when I’m here I slow down enough to notice more. Noticing more is always worth the extra time.  It is easier to be alert in a new place that demands your attention in a way that familiar places don't. But it's also a question of pace.  Our ridiculous American pace, worship of competition, race to win makes it nearly impossible to pause and take note of small things. Life rushes by in one continuous, undifferentiated, swiftly flowing stream. Before I know it, the entire river has passed by without my seeing, or appreciating, any of it. 

In Austin, a trip to the gas pump is pure function and speed. I arrive, shove the card in the pump, fill the tank as fast as I can and drive away, barely knowing where I’ve been for those five minutes or so.  Which may be just as well.  The station where I pump gas is a wasteland of concrete with fume-spewing traffic just a few feet from where I’m standing. Everything seems coated in a patina of gray filth.

In Provence, the closest place to purchase gas is a Total Station, set back off the road about the length of a tennis court and surrounded on three sides by grape vines for as far as the eye can see.  Across the two-lane highway from the station is the large warehouse of a Cotes du Rhone wine distributor, landscaped with rose bushes just outside the black wrought iron fence. You can’t really see the wine warehouse once you’ve pulled into the pumps, because they’ve been placed thoughtfully behind the gas station building so that drivers are shielded from the road while filling their tanks.  The driveway from the highway to the pumps is planted with roses and zinnias of many colors and between the pumps and a new carwash (enthusiastically advertised on the road as “!!Nouveaux!! Lavage Automatique”) is another bed of purple flowers and silver shrubs that help block the wind blowing across the vines.

I’ve had a lot of time to study the surroundings because getting gas is not fast.  The old pumps have no place to put a credit card; that must be walked inside the station and handed to the wife of the station owner.  A lady in her 50s, with faded ash blonde hair, a beige T-shirt, a soft voice and a Zen calm, she chats briefly with the regulars, makes sure everything runs clean and smooth and always has a friendly “bonjour” when I come in.  This process is gentle and human, but it also means a wait for a pump – each of which has only one hose.  People line up and wait their turns patiently and instead of taking five minutes, it can easily take 10 but they are not unpleasant minutes and they offer a chance to study your environment and think.

Earlier this week, I was waiting at the pump with everyone else, lined up in our cars facing east.  In front of me, the elderly gentleman and his wife, both of whom had gone into the station together to pay for their gas, came strolling out to get in their car so I could take my turn at the pump.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a beat up black Peugeot circled the line and pulled up to the pump going the opposite way.  A disheveled man with curly hair graying at the temples jumped out, snagged the pump and began filling his car.  I pulled up a couple of feet, turned off the engine and walked my credit card inside, grinning at his flagrant violation of pump protocol.  I smiled at the woman behind the counter and at her husband, who had witnessed the line jumper. 

There is a kind of stylish blue overall that workers wear in France and if you’ve seen one you know exactly what I’m talking about.  They communicate confidence, saying that the person inside the well-worn overalls has been doing his job for a long time and is good at it, understands the traditions behind his “métier” and respects them.  Someone wearing such overalls is disciplined, serious and honest.  Of course, they’re just blue cotton overalls, but they’ve never let me down yet.  Workers in France are among the most reliable and accomplished I’ve ever met – and this goes for electricians, plumbers, masons … and filling station owners.  The station owner was wearing such overalls, underneath which was a t-shirt that must have been red 25 years ago, but now had faded to a lovely dusty pink.   He smiled at me warmly and strolled casually to the pump where Mr. Black Peugeot was pumping away.

You could not hear what was said, he spoke very softly to his customer.  He was smiling and had the body language of someone correcting a naughty child who had snatched a playmate's toy.  The only reason I knew he was reprimanding the driver was Mr. Black Peugeot’s reaction, at once defensive and sheepish.  The station owner listened to him quietly, patted him gently on the shoulder and strolled back inside.  When the driver went inside to pay – by now I was finally getting my gas – the station owner’s wife wished him a fine afternoon.
 

I suspect that next time he stops for gas – whether at this station or somewhere else – he’ll be more inclined to wait in line.  He was reminded of the importance of good manners by someone who had them in spades.  And I was reminded of how different daily life is here and how even something as routine as filling your car can become a moment to notice and remember. 

p.s.  I went to get gas again yesterday and paused to shoot a few photos for this post.  As I was paying, the service station owner's wife noted that I'd been taking photos and asked me which one I'd photographed. I must have looked confused, because pointing to a red bucket and rag beside one of the pumps, she explained: "I was in the middle of cleaning the pumps today, but I have not had time to finish.  Please shoot the clean ones." I assured her I would.  And I had. They were all clean -- cleaner than my car, cleaner than the front steps of my house, heck, cleaner than my kitchen.