There we were at the Vietnamese, the "small" restaurant "across the street", where the meal with wine for two people still costs around fifty euros. Well, with a bottle of wine. No, not "open wine", where the origin (and quality) are often more than dubious. A bottle with a designation of origin and - in this case even a silver medal - from a recognised competition. Granted: these gold. Silver and white-me-which medals have become inflationary. But the situation, the wine and its quality are no less "excellent" for that.
It is a wine from the Saint Laurent cooperative winery in the Saint-Chinian appellation. An honest wine that reveals its origin, that doesn't want to be more than just a good wine, that carries the landscape, the mentality, the savoir vivre (not only the behaviour, but also the art of living). The wine costs - I looked it up later - around 5 euros a bottle. Admittedly, we are here - in the Languedoc - in a wine region, the largest in France, where even good wines are still cheap. Competition - even among the cooperatives - is fierce and the season in the tourist areas by the sea is very short (and long over). It is therefore all the more important to serve the locals and the few foreigners who are out and about in the evening well, also with a good wine, with an everyday wine.
n wine, with an everyday wine that gives pleasure and does not come from somewhere as one of millions of bottles that always taste about the same, but come from the area.