Because we’d all been very good boys and girls, the boss aka supreme leader took the upper echelons of The Lexington management on a little jolly over to France to take in some of the south’s vineyards and maintain the veneer that it was in some way work related and not just a total pish up.
We stayed in Marseille, which is like going back in time to the 1980s. Marseille ultras run the city (read this if you don’t believe me), everyone wears neon, nowhere has wi-fi or air conditioning, drinks are badly mixed but strong and cheap as fuck, people drive cars from the actual 80s whilst blasting out 80s bangers and generally everything just feels a bit knackered and worn out, much like the 80s. In short, it’s a pretty awesome city, a million times less pretentious than Paris and I would totally go back. Marseille is also home to one of the coolest nightclubs in France, called La Dame Noire but it was closed when we were there (on a Sunday and Monday), which made me very upset.
When it’s not on fire, the area around Marseille along the coast is known for it’s white wine and rose from the Cassis region, which somewhat begs the question of why the boss decided to take us here since she hates white wine. This hatred eventually manifested itself as frustration which caused her to book a whole extra day of wine tasting in the Rhone Valley which delivers more in the rouge department, but alas halfway through the second day she was bored with the whole thing and we went to a castle instead. YAY!
I’m not going to bore you with the details but these are some of the things that I learned and feel compelled to pass on for anyone who’s interested in stuff about wine:
- Drinking in the morning is absolutely acceptable as long as you look like you know what you’re doing – swish the liquid about in the glass, hum knowingly to yourself, say yes every now and again and hold the wine glass like as much of a ponce as possible.
- All vineyards are basically the same.
- Wine from the Cassis apolation is really nice – with the authority of having visited I can legitimately say it’s the best and you can’t argue with me.
- 2012 was a good year for wine – so it’s good that the world didn’t end.
- Red wine vineyards are probably more interesting as the process seems a bit more old school and they were all a bit older from what I remember.
- I probably don’t know anything more about wine than I did before, as this list demonstrates.
So there you go, a lovely time was had by all and it was quite spectacular to wake up from tipsy slumber and look out upon grape vines as far as the eye could see.
In the tradition of the 1980s, here are a bunch of 35mm photos…
Sock game was tight for these boys
And then we drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep…
Photos by @entitledtodance // @poroustaurus