The Man from Mosel River

The bottle of red by Domaine de Rapatel at Lake House

In the morning when we drove past Lake House on our way into town, we decided spontaneously that we should go there for dinner. Margit had seen a review about the place in the Bangkok Post. Of course we had to check the place out ourselves.

It was already dark when we arrived but the surroundings of the lake were very romantic. My camera, however, could not cope with the conditions. We choose a small table in the garden and had just ordered our food when an excited waitress came and invited us to a wine tasting. Surprise surprise, we thought, why not taste some wines.

In a small room in the main building, we met the winemaker, Gérard Eyraud, his daughter and grandson, and some more French people from the wine importer. We tasted four wines, three from Gérard, one from another producer from Southern France (Domaine Bouche Red, Cote du Rhone). I had nothing to write with, took no notes and also forgot completely to take a picture of the winemaker and his family.

The white from Domaine de Rapatel was a blend of Roussanne with Bourboulenc with a taste of apricots, one red was a blend of Grenache with Syrah and the third one was a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre (14.5% vol. alc.). The last one I know for sure, because we could not continue to drink the wine I had ordered earlier, after we had tasted these wonderful fruity wines made by Gérard. In the process we got to know Matt, one of the three co-owners of the restaurant, from Melbourne and established that his brother Dan is an old mate of my nephew Nik Meinhold. How small the world is.

Gérard and Christine Eyraud have about 15 ha under vines southwest of the city of Nîmes. Gérard sells most of his wine as Vin du Pays du Gard, the grand cru wines are labeled “Costières de Nîmes”, a wine region in the Carmargue, in the South of France. I have visited the city and its surroundings but had never tasted wines from there before. I loved the fruitiness which reminded me of Australian wines and not necessarily typical for French wines.

We had a jolly good evening. The tapas we had ordered were delicious, the wine was just superb. The staff was very friendly. We went home with the sincere intention to come back and taste some more wines. By the way the wine list of Lake House is quite extensive, and the prices are the best I have seen in Bangkok so far.
Needless to say that we ordered a couple of dozens of the wines the next morning by e-mail. More soon about these wines maybe with proper tasting notes.

PS: During the wine tasting we also learned that the house used to belong to Tiziano Terzani (14.09.1938 – 28.07.2004), an Italian journalist and writer, and a native of Florence. He stayed there for about two years. The house was called “the turtle house”. He also had lived in Beijing, China for a while where he was the correspondent for the German magazine Der Spiegel, until he was thrown out. I red his book “Behind the forbidden door: travels in unknown China” in 1986.

Address:
Lake House
http://www.lakehousebkk.com
18 Soi Prommitr, Sukhumvit 39
Bangkok, กรุงเทพมหานคร 10110, Thailand
+66-2-662 6349