I ate granola, tropical fruit, and yogurt for breakfast. Then I went to Eye Associates to have my eyes checked.
When I finished at 11:00 I drove to Lowe’s and bought a head f red leaf lettuce and six bananas and drove home.
I made a salad with a tomato, thinly sliced red onion, green cracked olives, cucumber slices, smoked salmon and dressed it with a Cesar dressing. I also made a cheese sandwich by melting slices of Jarlsberg cheese on a piece of toasted whole wheat bread in the microwave.
After lunch I went with a Suzette to Costco and we shopped for food. We bought bottles of Mohua Sauvignon Blanc, Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc, and a Kirkland California Pinot Grigio, plus a piece of fresh Halibut, a bag of spinach, white mushrooms, romaine lettuce hearts, sugar, butter, and eggs.
We went home and cooked dinner. I snapped about 25 stalks of asparagus. At 6:30 Suzette cut the 1.3 lb. Halibut filet into two pieces and Broiled the Halibut in the oven. She steamed the asparagus stalks and heated a freezer bag of rice in the microwave. I opened a new bottle to me that I think I bought at Trader Joe’s for around $5.00, a 2017 Croix Livignac Blanc Moelleux produced in the Comte Tolosan Indication Geographique Protégée in Southwestern France.
The label tells you a lot if you know how to read it. Livignac is the region in Southwest France where the wine was produced. It is located along the Atlantic coast and inland south of Bordeaux stretching to the Spanish Border. The wine region is designated Comte Tolosan by the EU. That is its iGP. Within that IGP are many sub-regions and localities that raise many indigenous varieties of grapes that had unique flavor profiles.
Here is more information.
Comte Tolosan is an IGP title that covers wines made in a large area of South West France. The catchment area of the IGP encompasses 12 administrative departments, and is home to a wide range of AOC-level appellations such as Jurancon, Cahors and Armagnac. The IGP exists to cover wines that are made in the areas outside of these appellations, or with different grape varieties and winemaking styles.
The region is a part of the Aquitaine Basin – the plains that fall between the Pyrenees, the Massif Central and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Spain lies to the south, and the vineyards of Languedoc-Roussillon can be found in the east. The Gironde estuary and the famous vineyards of Bordeaux are in the north.
The Capitole of Toulouse
© Wikimedia/Benh Lieu Song
Most IGP-related viticulture takes place in the center of the basin, along the course of the Garonne river. Here, old alluvial terraces provide well-drained, rocky environments for the vines, allowing for good flavor concentration in the grapes and deep, healthy root systems. In general, red wine grape varieties are found in the vineyards north of the river, while white wine varieties are found in the southern parts of the area.
The region enjoys a mostly maritime climate, although the sheer size of the area means that this is felt to varying degrees. Most of the viticultural areas are influenced climatically by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, which provides moderated summer and winter temperatures and high rainfall. Further inland, the climate is far more Mediterranean, however, with hotter, dryer conditions during the growing season.
The grape varieties permitted in Comte Tolosan IGP wines are indicative of the region’s location: local grape varieties such as Petit Manseng, Colombard, Tannat and Cot (Malbec) are all a part of the various AOC appellations as well as the IGP level wines. This list is also populated by better-known grape varieties such as Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Along with the AOC appellations here, Comte Tolosan IGP shares land with a selection of other IGP titles as well, including Cotes de Gascogne, Lavilledieu and Aveyron. Comte Tolosan also has five sub-appellations of its own: Bigorre, Coteaux et Terrasses de Montauban, Pyrenees Atlantiques, Tarn et Garonne, Haute-Garonne and Cantal.
The Aquitaine Basin was previously covered by the Vin de Pays du Comte Tolosan designation. However, as the Vin de Pays category has been phased out of French wine law since 2009, it now falls under the Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP) category of French wines.
Willy and Luke joined us and we had a lively conversation regarding Luke’s proposed house purchase.
We all loved the fish cooked in the oven except the broiler toughened the top edge of the fish because there were no lemon slices on top. Next time Suzette says she will put lemon slices on top when the heat source is above the fish.
The asparagus were tender and I loved the rice cooked in duck stock.
The wine went well with the fish. It reminded me of our family favorite wine of my youth. Barsac.
A great meal.
Bon Appetit
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