To Madame Croisier - the perfect hostess

Madame Crosier, THANK YOU! You may never read this but your hospitality this afternoon was fantastic. You might have guessed the semi-drunk group of 5 Americans (all working in Geneva) and two English (both on holiday) had visited one or two wineries before stumbling on yours. However, yours was the only one we will all remember, A fascinating tour of the vines and the winery and we certainly learned a lot about wine making. And then the tasting; no this wasn't a tasting, this was a hostess entertaining guests, lavishing them with food and plying them with wine and entertaining them with fascinating conversation in excellent English. Good wine too. And the apple cake was an unexpected treat. I think everyone envied Peter, being so fit at the grand age of 89, having found an ideal partner in his dog Toby, and being able to walk down to visit you for a constitutional glass of rosé each day. We wish you, your family, your cats and your vines every health and happiness.
Anyone else considering a trip to the Morges/Lausanne area or indeed anywhere in Vaud or near Lake Geneva then I whole-heartedly recommend a visit to the winery at 12 chen des Vignes, 1027 Lonay. The wines are excellent and the hospitality exceptional.

You might guess we have stumbled on the one weekend Morges opens its wine caves to visitors. 15 Francs buys you a glass, seemingly unlimited tastings and a free shuttle bus around the 20+ wineries. We were lucky enough to bump into 5 young Americans all working in Geneva who had caught the train over for the day to enjoy the tasting. Tim, if you are reading this, Brock works on the Atlas project on the LHC at CERN so conversations were somewhat reminscent of Hursley lunchtimes. It was a wonderful and boozy afternoon with all the wineries providing excellent tastings and bread, cheese, meat, fresh cherries and in Madame Croisier's case home-made apple cake. Lots of wine was drunk, several bottles in fact and a few bought to maintain the balance of propriety. Oh, and the sun shone all day. Wonderful!

Of course the best bit is that this continues tomorrow, our 15chf glass entitles us to another set of tastings; we only made 4 out of the 21 wineries today (I blame Madame Cloisier for making it so difficult for us to move on). We must try to do better tomorrow!