Its been a busy couple of weeks …. when is it not?

Two weeks ago I went around to a colleagesu house whom I had purchased off 44 bottles of red wine whilst drunk the week previous. Still, it turned out ok. The unit price worked out at just under 4 euros per bottle, and I`m told that the same wine would cost 10 euros per bottle in the shops. This of course could all be lies.

The weekend before last saw me go on yet another work organised tour, this time to the champagne region of France. First stopping in riennes for a tour of the cellars of
G H Mumm .

We then headed over to the burial place of Dom Perignon

and a tour through the champagne vine yards.

The final point of call was at a family run champagne company, where, after seeing them open a bottleo f champagne using a sword I ended up buying 8 bottles, admittiedly after drinking about 2 of them in their tasting room.

Which turns out was not enough.

Because I`m going back there a week on Wednesday just so I can buy some more.

Its officially winter. I know this because yesterday I had to work out how to switch on the furnace to heat the castle. When I was in Belgium last December I remember the temperature got down as low as -11C at one point, I`ve been told by my colleagues that the weather here is much worse and I can expect at least -15C this coming winter. Considering that just over a week ago I was sitting outside in the city centre drinking beer in just a t-shirt, things have turned pretty nasty, pretty quickly.

Tonight already they are predicting the temperature will get down to -1C.

And its only the middle of October.

Its a good thing I`m going to be keeping myself busy then over the coming weeks. Last week I was in Luxembourg for a tour of Vianden castle,

Beufort castle.

and Bourscheid castle .

This coming weekend I`m off for a day trip around France’s champagne country, starting with a tasting in Reims, heading through the wine fields of Hauttvillers, the birthplace and burial of Dom Perignon, then on for another tasting in the family cellars of Vadin-Plateau.

A couple of weeks after that I`ll be in Italy for 2 weekends followed by a trip to Aberdeen, then back over to California for 2 weeks before heading back to Italy.

So hopefully I wont have to too many pairs of extra gloves for Belgium after all.