On Bastille Day, close to noon, we were zooming along the D977, heading to Sablet from an emergency trip to the boulangerie at Crestet (being a litre low in croissants), when we realized to our horror and dismay that we didn’t have any rosé for our lunch.
Luckily, the local wine cooperatif was on the route. The plant wasn’t open on the holiday, of course, but the tasting/sales room was. Peeling rubber on our Citroën Cactus (the car name is real, the peeling rubber part is not) we lurched into the parking lot, ran into the tasting bar, and grabbed a couple of bottles of the award-winning Seguret rosé. (It cost €5.50 a bottle. Probably woulda been cheaper if it hadn’t won all those damned awards.)
As we pulled away from the cooperatif we noticed, tucked in against side of the building and the winery loading doors, out of the sun but also out of the sight of passing cars, a small, one-man-one-van vegetable market. Always ones for a good secret market, we investigated. (Peeling rubber as we turned into the lot, etc.)
The produce was great, so we bought some heirloom tomatoes, a big chunk of what may be the best watermelon either of us had ever tasted (sorry, grandma), and some perfect local raspberries.
After we paid Mark began manhandling the purchases to stuff them into a bag, but the vendor stopped him, gently handing him the box of strawberries and chastised, "Les framboises sont très délicates.”
"Comme moi,” Mark replied. "Comme moi.”
à la prochaine,
– Diane & Mark
photographs copyright Mark Craft