After a good visit to NYC, I flew to France for the Vinitech wine supply show in Bordeaux. As a guest of Tonnellerie Ermitage, I was able to meet a lot of winemakers over the three day event who used and liked the Ermitage oak barrels. At our booth we also set up a temporary kitchen and served lunch to clients and visitors to the exhibition. This was a bit of madness, but in the end it was a great environment to taste wines aged in Ermitage barrels, like Yves Cuilleron’s Condrieu, with delicious food from a Michelin starred chef.
The show was a success with numbers of visitors up from the previous event. Even cold, rainy weather couldn’t keep the hordes away. Everything you needed to make wine was there: harvesters, bottling lines, glass, corks, barrels, and tanks to name a few. It was actually my first trade show and I thought it was a great experience. I’m not sure if I’d like to attend them weekly, but with good food and wine all around, it had to be one of the least painful weeks of my life.
