Confessions of a Wino

Our last day in Haute-Nendaz involved a lot of walking.  After a lot of walking, refreshment is essential.  On the way back to Le Déserteur hotel, I wanted to put in a lost property report at the Police Municipale.  Richard had lost a camera and, whilst he didn’t care too much for the money, he was sweating lead bullets over the contents of the digital flash card.  For a man who has recently given up biathlons, still goes bull fighting barefoot, and is rumoured to be The Stig you will understand that he doesn’t sweat – ever.

So if you are in Haute-Nendaz and you find a Panasonic camera, please hand it in at the Police Station?  But before you do, can you post the memory contents on Flickr and send the hyperlink to me?

On the way up the hill from the station, we found Le Raccard, and, as it happens, we were sweating profusely on this hot autumn day.  Enjoying a quick snifter (petit pichet) of wine, water and tea, we quickly realised that this was the only place open on Monday nights in the ultra low Nendaz season of October.

The 2dl of Fendant tasted of pommes, bananes, un peu sec mais beaucoup de fruits.  Bananas was to become a surprisingly common feature of the Valais wines I tasted.

So the evening saw us back at the place, looking for quality cuisine Valaisenne.  An escape route from Dôle was found in a glorious Pinot Noir called Chateau La Tour (no not that one) Goubing 2006.

All four if us did a blind tasting and after violent disagreement settled on raspberry, and tomato juice with Worcester sauce.  At CHF39 (approx £16) it would be rude to talk of rip-off restaurant mark-ups.  In any case I couldn’t find an online dealer stocking the wine in any country.  And the total bill, at less than £100 for four hungry (and thirsty) mouths, was astonishing value, all things considered.

The food was really good with mignon de porc, côte de porc and fondue chinoise amongst the choices. Our hosts, Viviane et Gigi Angelone looked after us without so much as breaking out into song, or sweat.

A relaxing end to an invigorating weekend.  Oh well, on to other parts of this nation of cuckoo clocks and army knives.  The bus to Sion awaits the morrow.

Le Raccard, 1997 Haute-Nendaz, Tél:  027 288 15 43;  Fax:  027 288 23 61; Mobile:  079 436 64 26.  E:  lerac@bluewin.ch.

Le Déserteur, Haute-Nendaz.  Tél:  027 288 24 55;  Fax:  027 288 38 14;  E:  info@ledeserteur.ch; W:  www.ledeserteur.ch.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 9:27 am and is filed under food, rip off restaurant mark-ups, switzerland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.