It started Friday night with a lovely dinner with local friends Nadia and Patrick. Continued yesterday evening, with a Christmas party last night in Chinon, where we entertained each other with songs, poems, stories, games and a wine tasting. Everyone brought something for the table as well, which was all very delicious and very festive. Then at the end of the evening we had a Secret Santa. A good evening.
Today we were over at Philippe and Clothilde Pain's (father and daughter) Domaine de la Commanderie, with our neighbours Jacqueline et Norbert, for the first of the Christmas porte-ouvertes. These are the same vignerons where Mike and I went to help briefly with the vendange in October. Family and long-time helpers were out in force for what was - I think - a four-day affair.Huge amount of work and pre-preparation goes into these events. They are so well done, with a great atmosphere. We'd booked to have lunch there as well. Philippe was busy barbecuing the beef for the main dish or a special veal dish was the alternative. Home made terrine as starter, main dish, cheese and tarte au vigneron for dessert/€15p.p. The cave at Domaine de la Commanderie is just brilliant for this sort of thing. It's a good sized space, so it's easy to move around, with plenty of room for other producers and artisans. There were some white wine producers this year. The link is to Clothilde's FB page. It has some great photos from the event and gives you a good idea. Came away with just a few bottles of wine. Quel surprise!! There were also some photos from the vendange on display, including the one of Mike, which I love and he now uses as his FB photo.
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