Karen Magner writes I am a copywriter for Jackson Family Wines, avid traveler, and Francophile. When I saw the topic for this year’s contest, I knew I had to write about an incident that occurred many moons ago when I studied abroad in France. I contacted two of my friends who were with me that year, and their recollection of the sequence of events was stellar – thank you, Colleen and Linda! The only details we could not recall were the name of the winery and the wine variety; the 1965 vintage, however, is accurate. With creative license, I’ve remembered it as a 1965 Vouvray.
The story’s other details were inspired by the letters I had written home that year, each of which my mother had kept and returned to me when she recently moved into a care home. This essay’s for you mom. Thanks for sending me to France.
Bottle Service
After eight months of attempting to cook over a Bunsen burner, I was looking forward to a perfect culinary experience à la française with my two copines one evening in the Loire Valley in the spring of 1985. Pasta cooked on a real stove, paired with a carefully chosen bottle of white vin plonk. Studying abroad in the bourgeois regional capital, Angers, had improved our French considerably, but not our appreciation of the country’s wine. Little did we know what we were in for.
I grew up 4,010 miles away from Angers in Dayton, Ohio, where my epicurean education to that point consisted of chipping my front tooth on a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine and eating a quotidian lunch of cream cheese and jelly on white bread (God bless my mother who packed lunches ad nauseum for four kids). In high school, I worked weekends at a steak house, replenishing the salad bar with decorative kale and powdered eggs, accumulating A1 sauce under my nails, a proliferation of acne, and spending money for college.
In 1985, I found myself studying abroad through the University of Notre Dame in Angers, on the western edge of the Loire. Like my fellow students, I was assigned to live with a French family who did not permit me full access to their kitchen. (I was also allowed only one shower per week, a regimen that curiously cured my acne but whose merits deserve a future essay on French hygiene.) When I arrived at my host’s residence, Madame Turpault handed me a Bunsen burner and pointed me to a camping store where I could buy a can of Sterno. Most nights, I prepared vegetables with Moroccan couscous – exotic for a girl from Ohio! Still, I was grateful to skip the Restaurant Universitaire, where tripe played on repeat. A real restaurant? Hors de question. I hadn’t ruined my complexion to blow my budget on some fancy repas.
One day, my friend Colleen learned that her hosts, the Noury family, were going on vacation and, unbeknownst to them, invited my friend Linda and me to her house to cook dinner. Monsieur Noury was a wine distributor, and the family lived on the outskirts of town. As we trekked to their house that night, I couldn’t help but feel the requisite Catholic guilt for sneaking behind their backs, but the prospect of cooking a homemade meal on more than one burner proved too mighty a temptation to resist. Plus, Linda brought a bottle of white wine that was liquid divinity and absolved our collective consciences. We laughed a lot and forgot for a few hours that we were far from home. Until the realization that we had made a potentially costly mistake awoke us from our reverie.
“Uh guys, this isn’t the wine I brought,” Linda halted as she went to pour us a second glass, “I KNEW this tasted too good.”
“Oh my god, it’s from 1965,” Colleen gasped. “It must be Monsieur Noury’s!”
Panicked and envisioning our being kicked out of Notre Dame’s program, we frantically searched for a phone book. Miracle #1: Linda found the winery’s number.
“Linda, it’s 7 o-clock at night. No one’s going to answer,” I said.
To our surprise, the winery owner picked up (Miracle #2) and asked if he could help. We explained we had accidentally consumed the Noury’s only bottle of ‘65 Vouvray and asked if he had a wine that could atone for our sins. Miracle #3: he had the exact bottle we had downed.
“Would you like a case?” he asked.
“Um.. one bottle, c’est possible?” Linda asked. “And is there a bus we can take to your winery?”
The owner informed us there was no public transportation to the winery, but that he would be happy to send his son to the Noury’s house that night with our one bottle. Miracle #4.
After we hung up, our relief returned to panic as we realized we had forgotten to ask how much delivery would cost.
It was nearly 8 p.m. by the time the owner’s son arrived. He charged us a mere 15 francs (equivalent then to $1.50) for the delivery. Miracle #5. We thanked him profusely, then he disappeared back into the night.
After our year in France, Colleen held onto the empty Vouvray bottle before it disappeared in a move. None of us need it though to remember that night that taught us an unforgettable lesson in human kindness. The winery owner surely sensed the despair in our voices, and we appreciated his generous rescue more than he could ever know.
I often wonder whether such a thing could happen today. Was this moment, like a great wine, only of its time and place? A few years ago, my daughter studied in Verona, Italy. Between WhatsApp, Instagram, and Google maps, her experience was technologically enhanced and wonderful. I have no doubt that if she and her friends had experienced our debacle, they would have resolved their dilemma through cell phones and the internet—no friendly Italian winery owner needed. Conversely, these very technologies have enabled her to keep in constant touch with her new Italian amici.
Every technology brings tradeoffs, but I don’t think I would ever trade my year abroad for hers. I can’t help but think that the human empathy that flowed so beautifully that night in Angers would require much more forethought to happen today in our increasingly artificially intelligent world. But perhaps, I’m too old and nostalgic. I’m okay with that.
Back to that night…As Colleen, Linda, and I were saying our goodbyes, we heard a loud explosion coming from the refrigerator. The original bottle of wine that Linda had brought splintered into a hundred pieces in the freezer.
Humanity may indeed surprise you, but luck can only carry you so far.
Photo by Lauren Forando on Unsplash.
