Our favorite oenophile, Lettie Teague, recently started out her weekly column in the Wall Street Journal talking about the esteem the Gnostic Saint Francois Rabelais (who coined the phrase “Do What You Will” as the motto of his fictional utopian community, the “Abbaye of Theleme”) continues to held in the France’s Chinon region where he was born and raised. The article starts:
“RESIDENTS OF Chinon, France, have made the most of their illustrious native son, François Rabelais, attaching his name to schools, hospitals, streets and even restaurants and bars. The last two seem particularly fitting since the 16th-century writer and doctor was nearly as famous for his appetite as he was for his prose. A fan of local wines, Rabelais could also pen a pretty good tasting note. In one example, he compared the wines of Chinon to taffeta.”
Interestingly, the local wine producers apparently have quite the way with “sweet wines and wines that foam” among the broad variety of beverages they produce with craft and passion.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-value-french-wines-for-your-money-1462228689
thanks to Soror Amy for the tip!
