Pineau of Memory

The gift of a bottle of Pineau des Charentes  recently given to me by a  friend from Manchester came as a jolt of nostalgia akin to the effect of a madeleine on Marcel Proust.

During my two RAF years at SHAPE in Paris it was my favourite French aperitif, superior in my opinion to the then fashionable Dubonnet. Sipped ice cold, it was one of my little pleasures, its nutty, raisiny taste the equivalent of a good sherry of similar strength. As a product of rustic France, it struck me as delightfully mysterious, surpassed only by the more urbane Italian Punt  e Mes, which I came to enjoy - and still do - a little later.

But Pineau, or the slightly stronger Vieux Pineau which I preferred, disappeared from my sphere of bibulous activities when I returned to Britain, its aroma a distant memory.  It had been introduced to me by a French conscript called Michel Gilbert, whom I got to know at SHAPE and who was deprived of Pineau for a week when he was put on a charge while lugging two heavy boxes of documents from one part of the premises to another. A French colonel, passing him en route, asked him why he had failed to salute, and Michel replied that he thought it would have been ridiculous. He was promptly charged and sentenced to jankers. Later he invited me to his wedding at a charming auberge on the Seine outside Paris, though I have not seen him since.

What happened to him - and to Pineau des Charentes - I do not know. Somehow I never drank it again,  not even  when visiting  France and had the opportunity to do  so. My tastes, I suppose, had moved on. Yet clearly it still exists, and the bottle I unexpectedly received, and quickly drank among friends, bore the mellow old enticing label. But British supermarkets seem not to stock  it, nor does my local wine merchant, though it is available, as most things are, through Amazon.

Whether I go so far as to buy it that way remains to be seen. My favourite aperitif these days is a good white burgundy, which I shall be content to stick to. But the pleasure of tasting Pineau again was  nice.  If you have come across it in Edinburgh, I would be happy to hear from you.
23 July 2015