I had my weekly French class yesterday and with it being the vendange at the moment, most of our discussion centered on the burgeoning grape harvest and the wine industry.
We talked about ‘le bourru’, which is a drink to be found in all supermarkets at this time of year, in vast quantities and with much excitement, akin to Beaujolais Nouveau. It is a plain-Jane of wines, in basic bottles or lowly plastic cartons and very, very cheap. I have often wondered about it, so asked lots of questions. When would it be drunk? In what sort of quantity? With what sort of food?
It is the first drawings from a barrel of fermenting grape juice, so not yet wine. It is of low alcoholic content, fizzy, sweet and can be drunk as an aperitive, as wine, or like cider. Traditionally it is drunk with chestnuts, as the flavours ‘marry’ well.
So, I got some today….felt obliged to really. I missed it to start with as I was looking in the wine section. But it is stored in the fridges, stopped with a plastic bung with a hole in it to allow the gas to escape. It was white too, which I was surprised at for some reason, I was expecting red. It had all sorts of gunk in the bottom aswell.
We raced off home, with our ticking time-bomb between The Boys knees. I carefully avoided any bumps in the road and opened all the windows to keep the temperature down. I felt like a bank robber with a cargo of nitro-glycerine. Placed it in the fridge very gingerly and opened it before tea as an aperitive.
Didn’t so much as faintly pop when I opened it, which was a huge relief and a vague disappointment, but we drank it with our chestnuts and thoroughly enjoyed it. A bubbly, sweet, unfinished flavour but very enjoyable.
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