Gigondas

Gigondas is a charming small Provencal village in the southern Rhone region of France. Its name comes from Latin: "Jocunditas" means pleasantness and charm.

St Catherine d'Alexandrie, the village church, dates from the 11th century.

Gigondas lies at the foot of the " Dentelles de Montmirail," a mountainous ridge named for the lacy shape of its peaks. In the photo below, taken from one of these peaks, you can see my beautiful wife and the valley below carpeted with vineyards.

Gigondas wine is much like Chateauneuf du Pape but much less expensive. It's a very good buy.

We recommend " Moulin de la Gardette", the small family vineyard of Jean-Baptiste Meunier.
The average age of the vineyard is more than 30 years and it's grown without chemical weed killer. The grape harvest is handmade. Moulin de la Gardette wines are fruity, elegant , full-bodied and ages very well. Their price is very moderate. An excellent value!

La Petite Gardette 2007 Rich with fruit, smooth with a good lenght. An excellent inexpensive wine.	Gigondas "Cuvée Tradition" 2006 A full-bodied red. Grapes from vines between 20 and 60 years old.	Gigondas "Cuvée Tradition" 2007 80% Grenache, 10% Mourvedre and 10% Cinsault. wait 2 or 3 years before dinking it	Gigondas "Cuvée Ventabren 2006" 70% grenache, 20% syrah, 10% cinsault; deep ruby texture, nose of black fruits, it should drink for 15 years.

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Designer Lighting

Three classical lamps by FLOS (You can't go wrong choosing one of them):
Chasen T designed by Patricia Urquiola a Spanish designer and architect who lives in Milan. She designed for many well-known firms.
Taccia a great classic designed by Achille Castiglioni and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1962. It hasn't aged a day!
Ktribe T designed by Philippe Stark in 2007.

Cloud Floor by &'COSTA, an innovative Italian company, casts a gentle light . It was designed By Carlo Zerbaro ( he founded &'COSTA in 2000) and Alessandro Trentin. La Foule by "dix heure dix", a French design company, is a wall lamp in painted steel and printed glass, designed by Fabrice Berrux. When it was first presented it received an enormous acclaim.

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Elegant Maids of Yesterday

There are few direct accounts given by servants in the 18th and 19th century. Most of the time what we know comes from a third party who gives either a very positive or revolting version of their life. The artists who created the paintings below show different portraits of maids who are very elegantly dressed in sophisticated fabrics, lace and simply superb caps. They are probably servants of the highest society of their time as few people were able to afford such a luxury.

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Edouard Benedictus, a true Renaissance man

Recently I attended a small local auction and I fell upon one of the beautiful Edouard Benedictus book :" Nouvelles Variations" (1925). What good fortune!!! I love this artist. Edouard Benedictus was a multi-talented Renaissance man, at the same time a writer, a painter, a textile designer, a book binder and a chemist.

He created wonderful and colorful albums of textile and wallpaper designs in the Art Deco style . His books include "Variations," 1924, "Nouvelles Variations," 1925,and "Relais," 1930.

He was a friend of the French composer Maurice Ravel; both of them joined an avant-garde group of artists, writers and musicians known as the "Apaches" ( with Maurice Delage, Leon-Paul Farges, Manuel de Falla, Igor Stravinsky...).

Edouard Benedictus is the man who discovered safety glass in 1909: he discovered the process of lamination by dropping a flask that had contained nitrocellulose in his laboratory. The shattered glass held together, instead of breaking apart ( REF: SAINT GOBAIN)

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The many facets of Shanghai

I visited Shanghai for the first time 25 years ago. Today one of my daughters lives and works there and the Shanghai she knows has few things to do with the one of the 80's. With the advent of the single child civilization children have become the center of attention in a completely new way.

Look at how these two little girls are primped and gussied up! And look at how eager they are to discover the world!!!

Not only is intellectual acuity encouraged in very young girls but they learn fast to not be pushed around.

The cultural revolution is truly a thing of the past and has almost become a subject of mockery. Maybe it is also a way to dedramatize a very painful time!

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The modernity of the 18th century

The word "new" has such marketing value that it is used all too often. As a matter of fact what we think of as new has often very deep roots in history. The Chinese artist who carved the piece of jade pictured above created a sculpture with a very abstract and refined shape which an artist of the XX century could very well attribute to his own time. This stunning carving was made in China in the 18th century. The vase below was made in Murano, Italy toward the end of the XX century inspired by the beautifully embroidered lace handkerchiefs of the 18th and 19th centuries, it became known as a handkerchief vase. The artists in Murano did not lose sight that lace was first invented in Venice.

Venini Fazzoletto hankerchief vase, Murano, Italy

Lalique Hair Pin , France, early 20th century

The design of the flower is very stylized and abstract.Similar hair pins can be seen at Musée d'Orsay and at the Gulbekian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. Calouste Sarkis Gulbekian was a loyal Lalique customer

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A Dora Maar painting

A painting of Dora Maar (1909-1997) is on sale at Bonhams , London this week. It represents a landscape in the Luberon mountains of Provence. Best known as the muse of Picasso Dora Maar was a painter and a photographer in her own right. She studied painting in Paris with Andre Lhote.

She and Picasso met in 1936 at "Les deux Magots" a famous café at Saint Germain des Pré in Paris. It's said that Picasso was seduced by her deep and large brown eyes.

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Tradition triumphs in Burgundy

Comtois Horse working in the Romanée-Conti domain

Domaine de la Romanée Conti make some of the most famous Pinot noir wines in the world. The grapes are grown according to biodynamic principles and organic agriculture. You can see the extent to which they apply these principle as horses are used instead of tractors to reduce the compression of the soil!!! Many domains in Burgundy compete to be the most organic even if some have to chauffeur their horses in trucks to the vineyard!!

Map of Vosne Romanée

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The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

Beautiful wall painted sundials from the south of France.




Mottos written on antique sundials

Work because time flies

Ne Diferas ( don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today)

Silente Loquor ( I speak silently)

Spero lucem

my small shadow measures life

Dum fugit umbra quiesto

Quotide morirur ( each day i will die)

Sole me, Vos umbra regit ( I live by the rule of the sun, you live by the rule of the shadow)

Ars longa, vita brevis

I am the joy of all

I only count the day light hours

I measure the pace of the sun and your lives

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The Art of Dining

"The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure"

Michel de Montaigne

A huge white banquet damask tablecloth that falls to the floor. This is a throwback to the ancient past when the tablecloth was used as a napkin to clean one's fingers (as most of the time people did not use forks!!!). Some antique damask tablecloths are real works of art and priced accordingly.

One should always set a table with a minimum of two glasses, the water glass on the left and the wine glass on its right. When there is red and white wine the white wine glass should be positioned at the far right.


However it is altogether appropriate to have a formal service with an elegant but short tablecloth. And all the better for a woman to show off her legs.

Of course it's always possible to have the best of both worlds, a formal service with a tablecloth that reaches the floor and a shorter cloth placed on top to the best effect. This one for example has elaborate embroidery which is set off by the colored cloth underneath.

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