First of all, I want to acknowledge the huge amount of damage to the vineyards of France and much of central Europe by the frosts of the past week, which continue as I write this. It is possible that a majority of the vintage may be lost.
It is tragic and will be felt for a long time. The main reason for my absence from these pages, while not from wine, has been that since I have been living in France for 3 years or so now, my experience with wine has changed. It has become more of a relationship with a smaller number of mostly unpretentious and unspectacular wines consumed, for the most part, with meals. I will list and describe these wines later, but I am not sure that they can be found outside of France.
Another change is that our social circle here is not so wine-centric as the one we left behind in California. The French, with some exceptions of course, view wine as a grocery item. There is a bit more wine talk among the English-speaking expat community here, but not all that much. My purchasing habits here in Lyon are different than they were in the US.
I have gradually expanded outward geographically, as each wine shop cave here is unique. Each shop has one or two or more very good French wines at lower price points; each shop has different wines from the various regions.
Most larger supermarkets have some very nice wines on their shelves. Since we have not been back to the US for over a year, our cave has about 6 bottles of California wines left. As promised, here are our go-to everyday wines for ten euros or less. Le Versant is a favorite. They make other wines as well, but these are the ones available near us. These are wines that I would share with anyone who visits, as they represent their regions well. I would say that each is worth 2 to 3 times what they sell for.
