All pictures shot in september 2015 ..read more

Overview of the Portes Ouvertes Mareuil-sur-Cher (Touraine, Loire) A beautiful summer day in the shade under the open-air chai of former Clos Roche Blanche, a wonderful setting for Julien Pineau's Portes ouvertes (open doors) 2023 where he received several vignerons who also poured their wines to visitors. This was june 24 & 25, entry fee was 3 € and you were given a glass to taste all these natural wines. Julien doesn't do things by halves and on top of tasting these nice wines and exchanging with easygoing vignerons you were treated with concerts throughout the two days of the event. I ..read more

Volcanoes, vineyards, mushroom and wine... Gyöngyöstarján, Matra (Hungary) This was a nice visit to the wine region of Mátra in Hungary, a region where a new generation of growers and winemakers rejuvenate the winemaking culture. I spent the weekent with András Kovács and Kinga Toth who kindly invited me in their country house from which they tend their small surface of vines. As noted in my previous profile on them, they live in Budapest where they have their day job, but András is getting more freedom with his working hours as he's moving to a self-employed status, which will allow him to s ..read more

Hsiao Huang, of Kochang Fukuoka, Kyushu I made a couple of visits to natural-wine venues in Fukuoka, I had found some addresses on the web but ended to visit other place after my friend Alex from VineyardGate sent me a tip about one place, just telling me to look for @minnano_kochang. I did my part of research on the web and ended up finding the location and more exciting details through the tabelog page devoted to this venue... Comments of visitors were also interesting and helped me really find the door, as in Japan, many bars are not directly on the street level but are actually appartment ..read more

Nice after-work party ! Fukuoka, Kyushu (Japan) While Japan is known for having kept countrywide its age-old tradition of having good time with colleagues in bars after work, some cities like Osaka and Fukuoka bring with them an even richer food culture, given they were the entry port for foreign tastes and ways. Not that all foreign input were welcome : Hakata (an other name for Fukuoka) was the site of several attempts by Mongols at invading the country in the 13th century, these almost succeeded with the unpreparedness of the Japanse soldiers unused to face experienced and ruthless foreign ..read more

Man, that was a tasting event ! This is Les Caves de la Vallée du Cher, this professionnal tasting took place on march 26 & 27 in the Cher valley (Loire) in 5 different cellars (there's one I didn't have time to visit alas) distant from 2 to 4 kilometers from each other in Faverolles sur Cher and Thésée. More than 50 vignerons took place, from the Loire and beyond. The protocol was very informal even if you're supposed to be in the trade to take part (if you love natural wine I'm sure you'd pass through as well), the entry fee was 5 €, you're given a screen-printed wine glass which will b ..read more

The main room Malakoff, Paris suburb along the 14th arrondissement That's it, Raw Wine made its debut in Päris (march 12 & 13) after a long history (2012) of setting up tasting events along the past years in cities like London, Los Angeles, Berlin with the goal to present nature/biodynamic/organic producers to the growing crowd of winelovers focused on artisan wine. Raw Wine was created by Isabelle Legeron, a French expat who has been living in London for many years now, and given the UK culture of interest for all wine regions across the world, you find this global touch in the geographi ..read more

Overview of two of the tasting rooms (there were three)   Paris, 20th arrondissement There are always some tastings restarting at that time of the year, generally on mondays like here for professional events, I was tipped about this one otherwise I'd have missed it, this was the second edition of it, Le Paris des Sens being a Paris-based distributor of artisan, biodynamic and natural wines who set up now every year a tasting with their winegrowers so that their buyers can get a feel of the available (or soon-to-be) cuvées (their IG page here). There were a large number of vignerons (see ..read more

The crowd Paris, 12th arrondissement, This was another beautiful edition of La Goulayance, and it took place again in the premises of Ground Countrol, this vibrant venue set in a former railway locomotive workshop, I can't but encourage you to visit the place, have a drink, read books, play games, whatever this place offers which is pretty diverse, and families are welcome. Entry fee was 10 €, you were given a glass which you could keep after tasting the exciting natural wines of many vintners, who were present of course to chat with visitors and buyers. You could buy cases of wines or indivi ..read more

Easy cooking This is autumn and we're in the middle of troubled times with rising prices including for everything related to food, but there's still room for indulging in tasty meat dishes like the one I'm going to tell you about. Energy is also getting a subject we're getting told to worry, and good cooking often often needs to be long. You know I've been a longtime fan of everything off-the-grid and these days are the good time to experiment in this direction if you're still on the mainstream consumer side : all you need is a good old stove upon which you can sit a pan or a pot. Meat aisle ..read more