2010 FRANCE * Beaujolais (June 27)

Travel is joy.  Art is passion. 

“He who would travel happily must travel light.”   ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Bordeaux vineyard - antique limestone home

Lyon

June 27, 2010

A beautiful beautiful day in Beaujolais.  Agnès’ sister and brother-in-law (in French: "bon frère - my “good” brother .. mother-in-law is ma bonne mère .. my “good mother”... so nice!) have a summer home in Beaujolais, amid the vineyards there.  It is such a beautiful area.  Just as one would always dream it to be!

A perfect day for a cookout and stroll among the Beaujolais vineyards.  The house is reconstructed from an old barn and made beautiful yet authentic.  The well inside the house was a surprise.  One little trick:  if you ask for the “salle de bain” (bathroom) you will not find the toilet there.  That is in a totally separate room (here, on a totally different floor).  Then one would go to the kitchen or other bathroom to clean one’s hands.  (Just a little cultural side-note.)

Everyone chatted, strolled, had a bit of wine and an antipasto.  That’s when I discovered the star in my rosé!  Under a large shade tree we rested until the men took some vine “feet” (old roots & trunks) and started the fire in the  pit.  For dinner we all moved to another group of chairs and tables  that were under another group of shade trees and ate salads, lentils, cheeses, pork chops and roasted duck breast.  Wine casually yet constantly makes the rounds, interspersed with water.  Then the appearance of an exquisite cake, light cool and plein de framboises (filled with raspberries).  Ahh, les français!  Later, when we returned from our walk to the vineyard “cave” [cahve], the seats had moved again to maintain their existence in shade, but now they were in the shadow of the stone home.

The vineyards all around the countryside do not necessarily belong to, nor are cared for, by the people who own the homes.  Many of the fields are owned by cooperatives.  However, the vineyard and “cave” we visited is a single-family establishment.  Jean-Paul Vincent and his wife Guillemette own about 11 acres which create 30,000 bottles of wine per year.  We drove up to the gate on this Sunday afternoon and the sign announced “Cave Ouvert”  (Cave open!)  Here the “cave” (the “a” is "ah") is not really a cave, but it is a cool dark area where wine is stored.  We rang the hanging brass bell and entered.  Above us, in the gateway arch there was what at first to be a wooden bird cage but had small thimble-size white pieces of cheese there.  It is used to dry a special cheese into bite size, more intensely flavored, pieces.  The proprietor greeted us and started the tour, which since it was just us was more like someone just sharing their home.

la cave and owner

samplings of the vineyard's wine offerings

Old wine press, modern wine press, huge red bins for aging the wine, deep subterranean bins for holding the fresh juice until it is enough to pump into the large “casks”, large hoses for transfer and odd flat metal pieces which are submerged into the aging wine to keep it warmer or cooler to just the right temperature so it ages properly.  We return to the Cave for samples of the vineyards products in a quaint little “bar”.  I decide on the Dame Guillemette since it was the freshest tasting and carried the name of the proprietress.    After our visit, Agnès sister drove her mother and the precious bottle of Côte de Brouilly rouge back to the house., while Agnès, Pat and I took the scenic route back through the neighboring vineyards.  So beautiful!  It’s amazing to me how dry the earth is and yet it produces such an amazing miracle as a light, refreshing wine.

Return to Lyon through the sunny French countryside was just a joy - to realize I am in France, in the sunshine, having great experiences for which I have expected for nearly a lifetime.

J’aime la France!    

Beaujolais region info


[apologies for the low resolution photos .. these were transferred from an old website and will be updated to high resolution ASAP]