Wine-In-My-Glass-Country

“Are those grape vines?” Bertetto strolls along at 18 miles per hour, somewhere outside of Caraman and before Revel.

“Yeah, I think we’re getting into wine country,” Jesse replied.

“When are we getting to wine in my glass country?” My legs are aching, but the thought of vin rouge keeps the pedals turning.

“In about an hour,” is the answer. “And I think you’ve come up with a name for our next blog.”

And perhaps it is wine-in-our-glass country we are seeking. Mohamed, the carpenter we met in Caraman, tells us that rent in this small town is about 300 euros. Or perhaps it is wine country proper, replete with ripening Merlot and Cabernet Sav, that will be our reason to stop and pay rent.



France is one big, irregular sine wave. Soft, undulating hills interspersed with stark triangular peaks. It seems the older the town, the steeper the hill. If the Richter scale was able to detect the terrain we are traversing, it would be a line from an erratic EKG. In France, you don't have to worry about flat-lining for long--there are always mountains or hills nearby.

We stop at a hill-top church in Caraman to make coffee on our camp stove. An old French man, half stooped over, with a kink in his back, makes his painful way up, past the church, step by doubtful step.

Only an hour to go. Good--these runner’s legs aren’t meant for pedaling more than 50 miles per day. Broad yellow pools of sunflowers splash the trigonometry of the French country side. When are we going to see purple puddles – lavender fields?

I can see ten large power-generating windmills (moulins) in the distance. They are turning, ever – so – slowly, and it makes me feel like I am pedaling faster than the wind.

Even before we made it to Revel, we found wine-in-my-glass-country… at the InterMarche (a Walmart-style supermarket). With luck, for 1 euro and 33 cents, you can get a bottle of “Bordeaux” that is reminiscent, in a somewhat haughty but admittedly superior way, to Two Buck Chuck. The first bottle went down smooth, like grape juice. The second bottle was a little more tannic, a little more sour, but still drinkable.



“It's as if Jesus was converting water into wine, but stopped half way,” Jesse remarks about a third bottle, this one in a liter container, with an equally low price tag. But it still manages to complement our dinner: Fresh pasta with arribiata sauce and olives. Sheep (brebis) cheese with fig bread. Blue cheese with a drizzle of strawberry jam. Canned potatoes au gratin. Dark-chocolate cookies and a 25 centiliter bottle of trailer-aged Leffe for dessert.

My sleep is restless--still getting used to the camping mat--but Jesse's snoring is enough to wake the neighbor's cows. And in the late morning, it's on to the next town.