Salon du Vin ... What a difference a year makes!

Today was the day I've been waiting for throughout the past few months: The Salon du Vin des Vignerons Independants de France. Our cellar is running empty and it desperately needs filling. Jess now drinks wine often with a meal, and I can enjoy more and more, so we are up to a bottle and a half during family meals which makes it disappear quicker.

Today was the opening. I got there as quick as I could but still spent over an hour parking. For those of you who don't remember here is the ARTICLE I wrote once upon a time about the Salon. It was a great day and Desney and I truly enjoyed seeing our old friends. Many of them were very kind and said how great I looked. Wanna get me to buy more of your wine? Stroke my ego a bit? Does it work? Wel... it certainly can't hurt {g}. I was especially pleased at how much I could taste and enjoy. My taste buds and tongue certainly aren't 100% restored. But I believe they're up around 80% which is way beyond acceptable. We went back to our classic suppliers (Moreau Naudet - Chablis; Ehrhart & Fils - Alsace; Domaine de Fleurie - Beaujolais Cru; Le Fagé - Bergerac; Granoupiac - Languedoc-Roussillon and Michelas - Crozes-Hermitage/Cornas) and spent way too much money refilling the cellar. But we had a great time. The biggest challenge, as always, was getting everything to the car. We were home relatively early and ready for dinner...

Later in the evening I started contemplating Last Year's Salon du Vin which was towards the end of my treatments and the first time my mother had been. Eternally morbid as I am I went back to my blog entry for November 2005 and checked out what life was like a year ago. The first, slightly anecdotal, point I noticed was that the Salon started on Thanksgiving last year just like this year. The rest was slightly depressing and painful to remember. But the end result was the same: I've come a long way baby!!! Looking back I realise now that my present condition is actually far better than I ever thought it would be back then...

I can't wait to look back at this year's entry... next year!