For the Port Ellen leg of the trip, we didn’t need a car so we dropped that back in the morning, left our luggage at the hotel and headed off to the first and closest distillery, Laphroaig.

One of the first thing we noticed as we headed out of Port Ellen was a sign if Islay Wines. It’s basically someone’s house with a gazebo out the front where they do a free wine tasting as people come in. We were brought through all of wines available.

Clearly, grapes don’t grow on Islay so these are fruit wines. The rhubarb is particularly good but they also do a barley wine, not to be confused with the beer equivalent. It’s a wine made out of barley and is rather good. We bought a few bottles for the craic and to support local people and left them there to pick up after the distillery tours.

Laphroaig

I’m fairly familiar with the regular Laphroaig whisky of course, anyone who likes peated Scotch is but I’ve also had some cask strength 25 year old at the Laphroaig stand at Whiskey Live in 2017. It was brought out from under a table as it wasn’t technically part of the show but the man recognised someone who would appreciate it. Smoooooooth.

I did the usual tour around the distillery which of course is well worth doing because they still malt their own barley onsite, at least they malt as much as they can but they still need to bring in other malted barley from the Diageo owned maltings in Port Ellen. We literally stand inside one of the kilns.

One fun thing I learned about is the friends of Laphroaig scheme they run. Essentially, when you buy their whisky or show up at the distillery, you get a little cert which entitles you to a little plot of land. You register your plot and then any other certificates you get, you can add to it your account to gain points which you can use in their shop. If you like, you can put on a pair of boots and trek out to your plot of land but that takes you away from the precious whisky so I didn’t bother. This account or cert earns rent in the form of a mini dram bottle of Laphroaig once per year, if you visit the distillery that is.

After the main tour, I did a tasting of all the whiskies shown above. The green, unlabelled one on the left was a 15 year old one that Prince Charles used to sell on his own website. Laphroaig uses his Royal warrant since 1994.

The other odd bottle to the right was never for sale. It’s a cask strength blend of bourbon and sherry casks. We also got to try some new make spirit which clocks in at 69.9% ABV and is basically poitín.

My favourite was the Masters Edition but a close second was the 15 year old Cairdeas and that’s what I purchased from the gift shop in the end for budgetary reasons.

Lagavulin

The next day was August 6th which was my 40th birthday and I was being really spoiled that day. Lagavulin is the furthest of the three local distilleries but it’s still only a 4km walk which takes less than 50 minutes. In fact, you can easily do it in about 40 minutes.

I’ll be honest, I first heard of Lagavulin from Parks & Recreation. It was all that the character, Ron Swanson drank. It’s not on most whiskey menus in Ireland and when I finally tried it, I was blown away by how smooth it is. I obviously had to visit and my wife arranged a special warehouse experience for me.

On the warehouse experience, the legend himself, Iain McArthur comes out of retirement to guide us through a tasting of cask strength Lagavulin drawn directly from the casks themselves. In fact, we draw the whisky ourselves from the casks if we were lucky enough to be picked.

In my case, Iain selected me to draw the 21 year old bourbon cask because it was my 40th. He then came over and completely filled my glass to overflowing. That was enough to fill three driver dram bottles and enjoy a full dram from my glass. Considering I couldn’t afford to actually buy a bottle of 21 year old Lagavulin, that was good going. We also tried the 21 year old sherry cask. At £30 per person for the Warehouse Demonstration, it’s a bit of a bargain actually.

Oh and remember how I mentioned Ron Swanson earlier? Well Iain mentioned that had we been here a week later, Nick Offerman himself would have been there to launch his very own version of Lagavulin.

Ardbeg

Next, we headed to the Ardbeg distillery where I had a tour booked as well as another warehouse tasting.

I’ve been a fan of Ardbeg 10 for years and it’s probably the peated Scotch I drink the most. Myself an Pauline often enjoy a “wee dram” of Ardbeg so we were both really looking forward to this one.

We did the usual tour which I won’t bore you with other other than to say that it was a really good tour. Ardbeg by the way is the only one of the three Port Ellen distilleries that has a restaurant onsite so it’s one of the best places to eat in the area. Bear in mind, they only do lunch, not dinner unfortunately.

The Ardbeg tour at 2pm is the one that includes the tasting in the warehouse. It lasts 2.5 hours and costs £50 but it’s worth it. I’ve never even seen these versions of Ardbeg before. At the gift shop, I went for a bottle of An Oa which I had tried at the restaurant with lunch and really enjoyed.

Food on Islay

Now, you might think that Islay is a tourist destination for whisky lovers so there must be plenty of places to eat? You’d be wrong so be prepared.

Over in Port Charlotte, there are two places to eat and we went to both of them. The first is the Port Charlotte hotel and the food was excellent. I don’t think we had a reservation but we luckily got the last and only table available.

For the next night, we did have a reservation at Lochindaal Seafood Kitchen which is just on the edge of town. It’s quite new I believe and is part of the hotel of the same name at the other end of the village. Seafood is their specialty but due to the nature of their clientele, if you want anything fancy like lobster or a seafood platter, you need to order it 24 hours in advance. Pauline did that and the food was amazing as well as generous. The scallops in particular were beautiful.

In Port Ellen you of course have the Ardbeg restaurant for lunch and for dinner, your two real options are the Sea Salt Bistro which was pretty good and the Islay Hotel itself. Both do very nice meals though not as impressive as the Port Charlotte offerings.

I really enjoyed my trip to Islay and it’s rather easy to get to from Ireland during the summer so I’m sure that some day, I will get back there but for now, I’ve a bunch of souvenir whiskies I brought home.

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Getting to Islay from Ireland

Believe it or not, Islay (pronounced eye-la) is pretty close to the Antrim coast and while the conventional way to get there would be to fly to Glasgow and get a plane to Islay from there, a cheaper and quicker option is to get a boat from Ballycastle in Northern Ireland to Port Ellen on Islay. We visited at the start of August which was the weekend I turned 40.

The ferry service is provided by Kintyre Express between April and September, based out of Campletown in Scotland. It’s a fast, comfortable 12 seat boat with a toilet on board. Our crossing took about a 90 minutes and was uneventful in terms of weather as it was calm and flat, although I’d say in rougher seas, it would be a bit more lively. On the crossing over, we even saw a pod of Dolphins or possibly Pilot Whales as well as plenty of Puffins and Gannets along with other sea birds. One real benefit of doing this is that there’s no luggage limits. You leave your car in Ballycastle (plenty of free parking) and come back loaded with Scotch Whisky.

Distilleries on Islay

On the map above, there are 8 working distilleries on the island. There’s a 9th one called Ardnahoe in the north east near Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain but they haven’t produced anything yet, though I did visit during the trip.

You don’t need a car to visit the three Port Ellen distilleries but it’s pretty handy to visit the rest. Bowmore and Bruichladdich can be reached on a local bus service but it’s not the most regular of services so might prove troublesome.

We opted to rent a car which was waiting in Port Ellen and we drove towards Port Charlotte where we had accommodation booked for 2 nights in an Airbnb just outside of the village. We were early enough that our accommodation wasn’t going to be ready yet so we stopped off in Bowmore first which is technically the principal town on the island.

We weren’t on time for a tour but that’s ok, we were directed upstairs to the tasting room where I was offered a free dram of single malt. We had hoped to get a bite to eat but they didn’t serve food, a quirk we discovered is shared by most of the distilleries on the island. So we headed out to grab a bite to eat in town.

Next, we stopped off at Islay Ales by Bridgend which is set in a kind of craft village. It’s worth a visit and I’ve written about that on my beer blog: taleofale.com on this post.

Since it was time to check in to our Airbnb, we headed there next and checked in before walking the 25 minutes to Bruichladdich in the hope to get the last tour. We made it just in time but it was full unfortunately. That doesn’t matter, we were invited to the tasting bar to try, well pretty much everything as it turns out.

We were taken on the tasting journey through 7 Bruichladdich whiskies and even a gin and they were all absolutely wonderful. I opted to buy a bottle of the Port Charlotte which I had to hand fill myself. It was the one we liked the most during the tasting.

The next day, we took the car the more obscure distilleries that pretty much require a car to access them. We started off at Kilchoman on the west side of the island. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere but a beautiful drive to get there. We had already eaten that morning but Kilchoman does have a cafe so we grabbed coffee and cake.

We couldn’t do a tour but again, we did a tasting and bought a bottle of Sanaig from memory, though I might have grabbed something else actually. We also picked up two bottles of a peated bramble liqueur they make.

Next we headed to the north east of the island where there were three distilleries near Port Askaig. We started at the Ardnahoe distillery which is the newest one the island. Everything is shiny new, it only looks like it opened its doors a few weeks before we arrived and as it turns out, it had only opened at the end of May.

Since they are too new to have any of their own whisky for sale, I asked for a random whisky from their list. Inside is a massive tasting room with full seating and a restaurant. It was a nice pit stop but really, there’s little to bring you there at the moment other than the prospect of food, lovely views of Jura across the water and somewhere to stop on the way to Bunnahabhain.

The next stop was Bunnahabhain where we couldn’t get a tour because they simply weren’t running them that day due to being on a shut down. I had a sample or two before moving on to Caol Ila which was futile because the whole distillery was pretty much closed to the public for construction. There were limited tours running but you needed to book in advance.

So we just headed off around the island in the car, including a quick stop at Ardbeg for lunch before heading back to Port Charlotte for dinner.

The next day, we would drop the car back to Port Ellen and spend the next 2 days visiting the 3 distilleries nearby on foot.

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Skyscraper is the latest Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson disaster movie. I went with my Dad and Nephew last night knowing very little about the movie other than the obvious. It clearly looked like a cross between the Towering Inferno and Die Hard. I went in to the movie under no illusions that this would be anything more than a popcorn fest, despite the fact I don’t usually bother with popcorn.

There will of course be spoilers below.

The premise of the movie is pretty simple on the face of it. Bad guys set the tallest building in the world on fire and The Rock has to save his family. Of course setting it on fire isn’t good enough, they also storm the building in order to get what they came for.

As plot holes go, this movie must be up there with the best of them in terms of the number of them but let’s start with the one that was the most obvious to me. The Rock’s character, Will Sawyer is hired to test the building security for an insurance company. For some reason, the whole building’s security is controlled by a single tablet which has been bio-metrically locked to Will’s face using facial recognition. Will’s old friend has ensured that he gets the insurance gig so he can betray him by distracting him and his family for the bad guys to steal said tablet.

The bad guys perform their duty and steal his bag, assuming it contains the tablet. That was the entire root of their plan. Steal the tablet from him. Will should have been safe. Will’s family was supposed to be at the zoo and not in the building. With me so far? So no one in Will’s family was supposed to be hurt and the tablet simply stolen in order for the bad guys to use it to do bad things with the building. Here’s the problem, since their plan was to simply steal the tablet, how were they meant to unlock it? It was bio-metrically locked to Will! He needed to unlock it first.

The plot holes go downhill from there I’m afraid.

The movie is preposterous but here’s the thing, it’s not really trying to be anything more than what it is. It’s an action movie full of spectacle. It’s a rare movie where the main hero is a cripple. Will lost a leg when he was an FBI agent so the movie makes great use of his prosthetic limb. It has a tendency to fall off. I’m only disappointed he didn’t pick it up off the ground and beat a bad guy over the head with it.

If we inevitability compare this movie with Die Hard, we can see why Die Hard has endured all this time and Skyscraper will be forgotten. Bruce Willis as the hero is far more inspiring. He’s one man with no shoes in a building he’s never been in before trying to save his wife from the bad guys. Bad guys I might add who have a normal reason for being there. Simple greed and theft. I still don’t fully understand what the bad guys were trying to do in Skyscraper. It involved some odd master USB key which much like the ring of power in Lord of the rings, seems to control a bunch of other USB keys with incriminating information on them. One USB key to rule them all doesn’t have the same poetic ring to it though.

Unlike John McClane, Will Sawyer knows the building inside and out. The only person who knows it better is the person who designed it. That means the bumbling bad guys never really stood a chance against their one-legged antagonist.

Oh, and did I mention the duct tape? From fixing gaping wounds to helping him stick to the side of the building before elaborately jumping through spinning wind turbine blades so he can, wait for it, open a locked door? Duct tape can do it all, except to patch all the plot holes in this movie of course.

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I’ve been a member of Palmerstown Camera Club since I joined in September 2017. They have a monthly photography competition split in to Novice, Intermediate and Advanced. Since I had been a member of Mullingar Camera Club for two years, I signed up as an intermediate level rather than novice.

Each month, there’s a theme. You submit a colour and a B&W print and then also a projected image which is always an open theme, though many people stick to the main theme anyway.

So far, I have won a place for one or more of my images in every competition. I started off with 3rd place for my projected image. My prints were grand but not up to scratch. They were existing prints from Mullingar.

In Round two, I also got a 3rd place position for my projected image. I didn’t expect a place for my prints as they were only “good” and again, not particularly interesting.

Round 3 had a theme of architecture and this one I took seriously. I came second in the projected and first in B&W Printed.

Round 4 was friendship but unfortunately I couldn’t enter as I had injured my knee and was on crutches. A pity but what can I do? There’s no way to hand in my prints if I’m off my feet and I had no way to get them printed either without getting someone else to do it all for me.

Round 5 was last night. The theme was Reflections and Silhouettes. I was looking forward to this one as I had a great colour reflection of Lake Matheson in New Zealand. It came 2nd and the judge said it was very close to coming 1st. I also took 2nd for my Projected Image of Hobbiton.

Overall, I’m happy with the direction my photography has taken over the last 6 months or so. I’ve also got a lot of compliments for some of my work on Instagram, in particular, the images I take with my phone. The camera on the Galaxy S8 is pretty good for a phone. In fact, the top middle image above of the train station was taken on my phone.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram and Flickr by the way.

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When I arrived, darkness had mostly fallen but it was still a little bright out. A long exposure pretty much looked like daylight with the moon looking like the sun. That wouldn’t do me much good so I walked to the Glendalough hotel to kill an hour or so. I had already eaten dinner a few hours before so I ordered a dessert and a coffee and over an hour later, I headed back to set up my camera.

It was now fully dark so I needed the light from my phone to guide myself. I used the light on my phone to paint light on the tree and rock wall while leaving the shutter open. I discovered pretty quickly that night photography is very difficult. For one thing, I can’t see anything through either the viewfinder or the LCD screen.

I had to use best judgement along with light from my phone. I also brought a laser pointer so I could try and manually focus on the red dot.

Focusing was still very difficult but I suspect I will get a lot better with more practice. What I did notice after looking at the images on a computer screen was I still got the timings wrong. She exposures were mostly 30 seconds with the odd 15 second exposure and even still, I can see some star trails. In case you aren’t familiar with what I mean, let me explain. The earth is not only moving through space, it’s also rotating and because of this, the stars appear to change position during the night. You’ve probably seen the extreme effect if looking at really long exposure where someone has aimed the middle of the camera on Polaris, the north star and all the stars trail around Polaris. Here’s a random example of what I mean.

For what I’m trying to do, there should be no star trails. All the stars should be perfect circles or dots. What I was hoping to capture of course is the milky way. Unfortunately, even though it was a crystal clear night, the moon was practically full so I’m missing a lot of stars.

I’m also partially let down by my equipment. My Canon 700D is a cropped sensor DSLR so will not be as good at light collection compared to a full frame camera. My best lens is my 17-55mm 2.8 throughout so I opened the aperture all the way but I would be better off with a 1.8 or even 1.4 wide angle lens.

After I had taken my fill of shots at Glendalough, I drove back towards Dublin. I had a shot in mind though. The Great Sugarloaf just off the N11 dominates the local skyline. I had decided to take a picture of it as I drove past it earlier but it was too bright. Now it was just perfect. I pulled in to the side of the road and set up my camera and waited for a car to come past so I could capture its lights as it drove past. Unfortunately I was now closer to civilisation so there were far lass stars visible.

The above shot is what I was actually trying to achieve however. This is the same shot where I’ve replaced my dull sky with a proper shot of the milky way from a royalty free website. I did that using photoshop but any image editing software can do the same thing. I’m not sure this particular shot is technically possible to do naturally due to the light pollution from Dublin but it’s certainly achievable with my equipment and a really dark sky. I did once see the milky way from Dun Laoghaire pier. That was in 2003 and I was astonished I could see it with my own eyes being right there in Dublin. I would say with urban sprawl, that’s no longer possible.

I hope to get out again for some night photography sometime soon. Unfortunately the best time to see the milky way in Ireland is during the summer where it stays bright until after 11pm and true darkness isn’t until well after midnight.

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On Wednesday at my wine course, we covered The America’s both North and South. I find most North American wines too sweet. Most of the wines we had from Argentina and Chile were reds and most were pretty sweet. One stood out for me though and that was Bodegas Callia Blend de Terroirs Cabernet Sauvignon. That’s the one in the top right corner of the image. It’s a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon from two different Terroirs or soil types.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an amazing wine or anything like that but it stood out because it was highly tannic. I think I was the only one that really liked it and that meant I got to finish off the bottle.

What’s a tannin though? What does it do to a wine? Well firstly, don’t mistake a tannic wine with a dry wine. They are not the same though a tannin is very drying. Essentially, a tannin has the effect of removing moisture from your mouth and makes you feel like you have fillings that are trying to escape. It’s pretty bitter too. I like bitter things, especially in beer but also in wine and chocolate. In fact dark chocolate is high in tannins too. The more cocoa, the more tannins. I also love strong, bitter tea which everyone knows is high in tannins.

Tannic acid helps break down meat so you can marinate a steak in a high tannin wine to tenderise it. Drinking a tannic wine with a big steak helps break down the meat in your stomach too and since they are often very rich and intense wines, it complements the steak too.

Tannins aren’t for everyone though but for me, I love a good tannic bite.

The week before was night three. We covered Italy and Spain

Here are some quick notes I made of the wines.
Vedicchio – Slightly salty. Perfect for seafood

Tomassi Laguna – Paulone loves. Stewed veg. I don’t like it too much.

Le Volte – pauline not a fan. I like it.

Zenato Amarone – wow, portish. Lovely and dry but fruity too. Love it.

Twrras Gauda – is interesting. Pauline loves. I like it. Smells sharp but tasting immediately 180s to a big bodied, fruity sweet but still sharp citrus wine.

Las Rocas – super fruity. Lovely. We both love.

Muga Reserva – I like but Pauline not so much
Dry and fruity. Not sweet.

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The House

I selected a detached bungalow in Rochfortbridge, county Westmeath. It’s a sleepy little village at the edge of the commuter belt and was on the N6, the main Dublin to Galway road. I knew that a motorway was being built all the way from Dublin to Galway and that within a few years, it would be available as far as Athlone so Rochfortbridge would be bypassed and have its own motorway exit. I put up with the old road and its traffic for years. First, the motorway opened up as far as Kinnegad with Rochfortbridge about 10 minutes away on the old road and then the next section opened up so commuting back and forth between Dublin and Rochfortbridge only took 35 minutes to Liffey Valley/M50. I was commuting to Ballycoolin/Blanchardstown in under an hour. My commute was actually shorter than those living on the south side of Dublin at the time. That changed in their favour when the M50 upgrade completed and the toll booth removed but still, it’s a pretty good commute time.

The house itself is a 3 bedroom, detached bungalow that cost €190k in 2005.  I got the keys in June and immediately started upgrading the floors etc. Over the past year and a half, my personal circumstances have changed and it’s time to sell and move back to Dublin. House prices are on the rise all over the country and it’s only in the last year that house prices in Rochfortbridge have reached a level that I can consider selling to at least break even on the remaining mortgage and if lucky, make a little money for a future house deposit. It may have cost €190k but I doubt it will get up to that value again, at least not for a couple of years and I’m selling now.

Here’s a link to my house ad on daft.

Selling a house

In Ireland, if you want to sell a house you normally enlist the services of an estate agent. What many people don’t realise is that you don’t actually have to. Your solicitor does all of the important stuff so all the estate agent really does is advertise and act as a 3rd party intermediately between you, the buyer and your solicitor. Is an estate agent worth it? Possibly they are if there’s plenty of equity in the house but in my case, there isn’t. If I can get away with the mortgage and solicitors fees covered, that would be a win. I don’t want to be paying an estate agent a couple of thousand on top of that.

Selling it yourself

When I looked up how to sell yourself, I found a number of websites dedicated to just that. Unfortunately, they appear to be pretty useless. Signing up to one of these sites for €300 or so allows you to put an ad on their website and then they send you a sign to put in your garden. Those sites are rarely checked by anyone looking to buy a house.

The two big residential house sales platforms are myhome.ie and daft.ie

My research showed that myhome.ie was perhaps a little better for Dublin and daft.ie for everything else but usually daft.ie has more listings regardless. I can’t use myhome.ie because it was set up by a group of estate agents and only takes listings from an established agency. Daft.ie on the other hand will list private sellers from €299 so I decided to do that. I don’t get a stupid sign for the garden but I can probably get one made for less than €50 if I wish.

Some people might be put off by dealing directly with the home owner and would rather deal with a 3rd party and yet others would rather deal with the owner directly rather than a 3rd party who has no interest in the property other than extracting the highest price. I’m of course hoping for the latter.

An estate agent might sell the house quicker but I need to sell it at a price I’m happy with rather than as quickly as possible. Since I would probably be charged for listing on daft.ie anyway, I haven’t lost out financially.

What about pictures and description?

One of the things that en estate agent does is send someone to take professional photos of your house and write up something to help sell it. The good thing here is that I’m a bit of an amateur photographer and I also enjoy writing so that’s no problem for me. I have a decent DSLR and range of lenses needed. In fact, not all estate agents get professional photos taken. Some just take rubbish pictures on their phone or a cheap camera and even if they have a DSLR for appearances sake, they don’t know how to use it and lack the correct lenses for the job.

House Valuation

One of the useful services that a real estate agent performs is to place a value on your home. They can do this better than the owner because often times, an owner uses emotion rather than reason when valuing their home. For me, it’s easy to place a dispassionate value on my home.

First thing I did was check recent house sales. An identical house in the same estate sold for €147,000 in August. A semi detached house in the next estate sold for €153,000 around the same time. Since then, another identical house to mine has gone sale agreed. I don’t know what the agreed price was but it’s nowhere near as well finished as mine with an overgrown garden and a fireplace that was ripped out according to the pictures and more importantly, doesn’t have a second building out the back.

Man Cave

Since I had a base of between €147k and €153k I settled in the middle and advertised at just below €150k. This will just about cover the mortgage and expenses if I get that much but I’m hoping the fact that the house has been completely repainted inside and the refurbished main bathroom in beautiful stone tiles and jacuzzi bath will help add value and that’s before we even talk about the man cave out the back. The 3m by 6m concrete building is insulated and fully electric. It’s suitable for use as a home office, hobby room, or workshop. I currently use it as a brewery and gym.

Brewery & Gym

No one buys houses at Christmas

I wanted to get it up before Christmas despite Christmas being the quietest time in the market. Why? It’s simple. No one is likely to buy a house at Christmas time but Christmas day and indeed the period between Christmas day and New Year’s day will see that millions of people in the UK are looking at houses according to some articles like this one. It’s basically window shopping with a view to buying in the new year. Christmas is a time of fantasy so it’s not a great leap to assume that people will spend their days off fantasising about buying a new home.

Will it work? Or will I still need an estate agent?

Only time will tell on this one. My ad went live on daft.ie yesterday and it now has 550 views as well as some Facebook tags so I’m optimistic that I’ll start getting calls in January. If I get nowhere by about the end of February, I can employ an estate agent if I feel the need.

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The Location

I went along to see the musical production of Sister Act this week. It was my first time going to the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin. That’s a horrible, mouthful of a name for a theatre so I’m going to refer to it as the BGE theatre.

The BGE theatre is Ireland’s largest theatre with a capacity of 2111. I was pretty far down the back and the stage looked quite small but having just compared the specs to Her Magesty’s Theatre in London where I saw Phantom of the Opera, it’s actually a fair bit bigger.

The Musical itself

So, on to the musical itself. The first thing I will say is that if you go to the Sister Act musical because you loved the movie and are looking forward hearing your favourite songs from the movie, be prepared to be disappointed. Not one single song from the movie has been included. Instead, we have a completely original score by Alan Menken who did Disney’s Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and Enchanted.

They have also changed some of the story. The whole musical takes place in Philadelphia in the late 70s rather than Reno and then San Francisco in the 90s. This was done as an excuse to use disco and motown music I’m guessing.

The headline for the show is Alexandra Burke who apparently won X Factor at some point. I had never heard of her myself but others had. She was actually very good with a powerful voice.

How was it?

There were a few scenes that I found disjointed, maybe it was just me but I just didn’t see the relevance. The musical had got off to a slow but chuckle inducing start but it picked up pace when Sister Mary Clarence took over the choir.

One little gripe I had was the scene changes. They seamed lazy because the background never changed from that of inside the church. Instead, some chairs or a bed were rolled out. In a scene that led from inside a bar across the street from the convent to the outside of that bar, all that indicated we were outside a bar was a sign that came down which said bar in flashing neon lights. Having looked at some YouTube clips from past performances, I see they used different backdrops which changed during different scenes and it just seems more polished. The current set changes just reminded me of something I might see in a school production.

Conclusion

Aside from a few disjointed scenes and cheap sets with lack of changes from scene to scene, the performance was excellent and the crowd were kept engaged. The standing ovation at the end was instant and deserved with the biggest cheer for Alexandra as you might expect.

If you enjoyed the movie, go and see it but don’t expect to hear the same songs as the movie. I enjoyed it myself and so did everyone else I was with. We have all even decided to watch the movie again.

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We knew very little about Saint-Émilion other than reports from friends that it was the place to go for wine and we knew nothing about Valandraud other than it was a relatively new vineyard that was about 20 years old.

We arrived to a stunning place indeed. First, we visited Saint-Émilion itself and walked around. We visited the visitor centre and it turned out that you can’t just arrive at a vineyard. You need to pre-arrange it. Some have open days but you have to get there yourself. It seems that the only way to do that is by taxi, private car or chauffeur. There were a lot of the latter around. We decided that since we were staying at a Château, we might as well just do that tour and then wing the rest of the trip.

The town itself is set on a hillside overlooking the many vineyards of the region. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site with narrow alleys and what seems like more wine shops than people. The population is less than 2000 but there can be multiples of that number there at any one time due to wine tourists.

After an hour or so, we went off in search of Château Valandraud. this proved easier said than done because it showed up in different locations depending on what GPS system we used. It didn’t appear on any of the vineyard maps dotted around the countryside. Being 20 years old, it’s far too new to appear on any signs. We eventually found it by using google maps and having to use data roaming.

Once we settled in, we grabbed a bottle of their Bad Boy wine from the fridge for €18 and sat on the deck just taking it all in. What an absolutely stunning view and experience. Sitting on a deck overlooking rolling vineyards drinking a bottle of rather good red wine. We spent an hour or so enjoying the scenery and then 20 minutes in the outdoors hot tub before we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. We had arranged the last table at a local Michelin star restaurant at another Château. It was a 5.3km walk so we gave ourselves an hour and 15 minutes or more to do it in. Plenty of time since we normally walk 6km in an hour.

Les Belles Perdrix is the restaurant located on the Château Troplong Mondot estate. It sits atop a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside. As a result, it has a water tower which slightly spoils the look of the immediate area. That water tower is clearly visible from Saint-Émilion and it’s only about two kilometres from the town centre.

They have a few menu options but we went for the carte blanche for €100 per person. That means whatever the chef wants to serve. I reckon it’s the most popular as the chef uses whatever local seasonal products are available and it’s a chance for him to experiment. I didn’t take any pictures of the food as that’s for Instagram users. We had a glass of house white while searching for a bottle of wine to drink from the menu. I did take a picture of the beautiful 2012 Mondot Saint Emilion Grand Cru we settled on. We made use of some data roaming to look up wine on the menu and the 2012 seemed the best value for money. It was €50 for the bottle in the restaurant but this bottle retails for about €90 and we loved it so much, we bought a few bottles to take home at €38 each. The 2006 vintage in Dublin is €179 in O’Briens a the moment. I have read the 2012 bottle should reach its peak in 2018 so we will try to age at least one of them until then as it’s not too far away.

The food was stunning and I would go so far as to say it was the second best meal I have ever had in my life, the first being Chapter One in Dublin. It was only my 3rd Michelin star restaurant. Pauline on the other hand has been to many more and even she rated it one of the best she had ever been to.

While the walk was lovely earlier, we arrived just as it was getting dark and had no intention of walking back so we had them call us a taxi. One thing to bear in mind is that there appears to be a set price in the area rather than a meter system. The 5km journey cost us €20 so it’s something to bear in mind. In our case, the taxi driver didn’t even have to come out to collect us as he was waiting for another party that wasn’t finished yet so he took us for the 10 minute round trip rather than sitting there. It’s a good thing we had walked there as I believe the price to collect and take us there would have been €25. It might seem a little ironic to be complaining about taxi prices while dining at a Michelin star restaurant but we don’t make a habit of spendy nights out.

The next morning at 11 we had a free scheduled wine tasting as part of our stay. We assumed we would meet in the living room or perhaps on the deck and taste a few wines. How wrong we were. Our young French guide spoke excellent English having learnt in Glasgow of all places. I believe her name was Lorraine or something similar. Possibly Lorien? Anyway, the tour started outside with some history and explanation about the land, terroir, classé and all of that fun stuff. It was incredibly interesting and informative.

One bizarre thing I learned about the Saint-Émilion AOC is that the price of wine is determined by which appellation the grapes are grown. I imagine this holds true for the whole of France. If you look at the image above, it’s taken from the deck of Château Valandraud and overlooks their vineyard. Not all of that is theirs, there are other estates on either side and the plots are mixed. The price of land right here is €1m per hectare. That’s a lot of money. Now, take a look at the road in the top left, you can also see it in the picture of Bad Boy further up as the road appears in the glass. That’s a different appellation. Valandraud is in the Saint-Émilion appellation and across the road is another appellation within the local AOC called Montagne Saint-Émilion. Land over there costs a far more reasonable €200k per hectare.

Does anyone reading this seriously think that the land on the cheaper side of the road is so different to the spendy side as to make any real difference to the grapes that are produced? Valandraud does have some plots over there but can’t produce their Grand Cru from those grapes. Everyone knows there’s a certain level of snobbishness in the wine world but this seems to be the epitome of it. It’s basically vineyard apartheid.

We were then taken inside the production facility in to what looks surprisingly like a brewery. I have been on countless brewery tours and have visited quite a number of wineries in the US and one in Australia but I have never actually seen the production facility itself. In the image above, you will see three different types of fermenting vessel or tank used by Valandraud. As you might expect, there were the oak and stainless steel vessels but there were also two concrete tanks. Concrete? I would have thought that would be toxic but apparently not. It would seem that concrete has all of the advantages of both wood and stainless with none of the drawbacks. Stainless steel is too perfectly sealed and doesn’t allow the wine to breath but imparts no unwanted flavours. Wood does allow the wine to breath but imparts a woodiness that might overpower the fruit. Concrete allows the wine to breath at a microscopic level, imparts no undesirable flavours and also naturally keeps its temperature steady.

It would seem that wine makers all over the world are turning to concrete vessels to age their wine. I would say the only downside would be physically moving them around if you had to change the layout somewhat. Could a normal forklift move it or would you need to hire some sort of crane like machine?

If I remember correctly, when Jean-Luc Thunevin initially set up his vineyard in 1989, he was given either a gift or a loan of a number of barrels by a friendly cooperage by the name of Seguin Moreau. Since then, he almost exclusively uses those barrels so a very healthy relationship matured out of an act of kindness from a friend.  I could have that story completely wrong so feel free to correct me if you know better.

This was the first instance of what was termed Garage Wine in the region. It was literally made in a garage. In the beer world, we would call that craft beer so is this craft wine? Jean-Luc gained the reputation as the bad boy of Saint-Émilion and that name is reflected in his Bad Boy wines.

In 1995, respected and well known wine critic Robert Parker scored Valandraud higher than  Château Pétrus. This had an immediate impact on the price of the wine with prices jumping to over €90 in 1997. The 2005 vintage was €165 and I got to taste a little of that one at the tasting.

The obligatory bottling line. It doesn’t matter if it’s a brewery or it seems a winery that I visit. The bottling line is presented with puffed out chests and a lot of pride. We also learned that they produce kosher wine. The visiting Rabbis concentrate it after fermentation and from that point on, only they can touch it and they visit to keep an eye on it. Looking at the prices of this very limited batch, they are very expensive to buy.

The tour seemed mostly over and just the tasting left but it wasn’t that simple as the tasting turned out to be in Saint-Émilion itself. Rather than follow Lorraine in our car, we asked could she give us a lift and we would make our own way back and she agreed. She was also impressed that we chose to do that and be responsible rather than drink and drive. While France has the same alcohol limits as Ireland, in the wine regions, the police seem to be a lot more reluctant to intervene. Apparently the mayor and some of the higher ups have their own vineyards. It wouldn’t go down very well if they had random breath tests in the region. Anyway, we got a lift in and did the wine tasting. We then bought 3 of each of the wines we liked but could actually afford. If I decide to start writing about wine I’ll try to include them.

After that, we walked around Saint-Émilion, had lunch and eventually walked the 6.2km back to Château Valandraud for some wine and hot tub time. It was the second most relaxing part of our holiday. I even got a little astro-photography time that evening.

The most relaxing time would come next in Cognac. I’ll write about that in a few days. Thanks for reading.

The post The Rolling Vineyards of Saint-Émilion appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

Walking around the streets of the old town in San Sebastian, you can’t help but wonder about the whole pintxo thing. They are everywhere, almost every bar is packed full of plates of random pieces of food. 

A pintxo is sort of like a bigger version of tapas and is often sitting atop a piece of bread, pierced by a cocktail stick. They are the Basque version of a pincho but don’t call them that when in the Basque region. Pintxo is pronounced peen-cho by the way.

So, how long has your pintxo been sitting on that bar? At least a number of hours and likely since opening time. It’s also possible that it was sitting on the bar the day before. If visiting the Basque region, you really don’t want to be picking anything off a bar, even if it looks appetising. I suppose it depends on the pintxo. If it’s in a pot that gets heated up, it’s probably fine. Also, if you are there when a fresh plate is put out, that’s also fair game. There’s a far better way of doing things though, look for a menu. If there’s one on the wall, that usually means it’s cooked or prepared to order meaning it will be fresh.

Last week, I spent two days in San Sebastian with my girlfriend. She had been there before but it was my first time. We couldn’t get any of the Michelin star restaurants as they were either closed or fully booked so the first day we sort of wandered around and grazed a little. I was pretty underwhelmed by most of what I had in terms of pintxo but the wine was good and stupidly cheap for someone from Ireland. Two large glasses of rioja for about €3.50? A complete bargain!

We needed a better plan for day 2 and thankfully that came in an unlikely form. As you probably know, I’m a beer writer. My normal blog is www.taleofale.com and you can read my beer post here. After we were finished grazing in pintxo bars, we headed to a beer bar called Akerbeltz up the hill near the Santa Maria church, probably the best place for good beer in the city. While there, we were informed about a brewery birthday party in a nearby city so we hopped in a cab and went there. We had a great time but a local Welsh guy we met at the party emailed us a list. That list not only contained the name and address of his favourites, but also suggestions of what to order while there. Armed with that list, we headed out the next evening in search of a foodgasm and we pretty much got it.

Cuchara de San Telmo was my favourite one from the list but it’s a little different than the others as they only do made to order. The bar is too small and busy to really eat inside but there’s a small seating area outside at the back if you are lucky to get a seat. they do table service there too. We were lucky because one table was taken up with one man. When I inquired if the other seats were available, he invited us to sit down. Apparently, this place can be incredibly busy with queues around the corner but it moves quickly enough. A long queue might just be worth it though. Pretty much everything on the menu is likely to be pretty amazing so if you only have one place to visit, make sure it’s here.

Below is the list we were sent. The name of the bar is in bold and the name of the recommended dishes are underlined. I have also added in comments of what we thought of the ones we made it to. We didn’t quite make it half way through the list before we were stuffed. I hope the list helps if you find yourself in San Sebastian and are overwhelmed with choice.

Zeruko (Calle Paesacderia, 10) – La Hoguera (a cod dish)
Sashimi de tolosa (beef prepared in different 3 ways) – Closed when there.

La Cepa (Calle 31 de Agosto, 7) – Jamon de Jabugo – lovely plate of sweet ham. Big plates available but spendy. Worth it though.
Hongos a la plancha (Grilled mushrooms) – A Must get. So rich! They also had some of the best wine we had in San Sebastian.

La Vina (Calle 31 de Agosto, 3) – Tarta de queso (cheesecake) – Skipped as we didn’t want dessert.

Galtxagorri (Calle 31 de Agosto, 22) – Magret de Pato (duck breast)
Cochinillo (Suckling Pig) -1st stop. The duck was amazing. Suckling Pig good but too fatty. Also potato and cheese dish was great, that one we actually picked up from the bar but they heated it.

Cuchara de San Telmo (Calle 31 de Agosto, 28) – Carrilleras (beef cheeks) – Amazingly succulent.
Viera ‘Toro’ (scallop) – not available.
Cochinillo (suckling pig) – Beautiful crispy crackling. 
Also had risotto which was amazing. Frois gras – nice but not my thing personally. Also had some squid which was good but not great so I wouldn’t bother with that one.

Gandarias (Calle 31 de Agosto, 23) – Solomillo (little fillet steak on bread) – Just had wine. The steak looked nice but just steak on bread. Not worth bothering with.

We didn’t make the rest below but if you read this and try them, be sure to comment and let me know how you got on.

A Fuego Negro (Calle 31 de Agosto, 31) – Makobe (little burger)

Goiz Argi (Calle Fermin Calbeton, 4) – Brocheta de Gambas (prawn skewer)
Pimientos de Padron (green peppers)

Casa Urola (Calle Fermin Calbeton, 20) – Hamburguesita (little burger, changes depending on season)
Viera en crema de ajo blanco (scallop in garlic cream)

Borda Berri (Calle Fermin Calbeton, 12) – Ravioli de Txangurro (crab ravioli)
Pulpo (octopus)
‘Kebab’ Costilla (pork rib)

Egosari (Calle Fermin Calbeton, 15) – Brocheta de rape, bacon y langostino (monkfish, bacon and prawn skewer)

Astelena (Plaza de Constitucion, 120) – Solomillo (little steak)
Bacalao (salt cod)
Rabo de Buey (oxtail)

La Mejillonera (Calle del Puerto, 15) – Mejillones (mussels, they’ve got them in different styles)

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