France Day 6 - Goodbye Rhubarb Jam, Hello Beaujolais

Ate as much rhubarb lemon jam I could without scaring the other guests of the Chateau', said au revoir to Francois and his three wonderful dogs and hit the hilly road to Beaujolais.

We arrived in Fleurie at Domaine du Clos des Garands-Fleurie, met our hostess Marie, and went to have a late lunch at one of the only two restaurants this small town has to offer. One was closed, so our decision was made for us and we sat down to the many stares of the locals since apparently not a lot of tour buses come plowing through this tiny town.

The restaurant didn't seem to have a name or if it did none of us could figure it out. After navigating the French menu with our pocket dictionaries, we decided to kick off our lunch with a plate of charcuterie. This included a terrine mixed with pate', garlicky, fatty, tasty salumi and prosciutto. Gotta say at this point, I am over the terrines...

For my main course, I went "light" and chose saucisson in a rich brown sauce with potatoes au gratin, spinach and mushrooms. The texture of the saucisson reminded me of a combination of taylor ham (aka pork roll) and I am thinking it was pork not beef, but this is coming from someone who inadvertenly ate duck gizzards. Anyway, it was really tasty and at this point of the trip, my penchant for ordering and buying sausage products had become a source of comic relief for the girls. Yes, I am a saucisson addict!

After lunch we navigated the hilly roads and tasted some delicious fruity wines, especially the 2005 Chiroubles at Chateau de Raousset, Charvet Anthony, and Domaine de la Grosse Pierre to name a few. Since these wines are bottled quickly and meant to drink young, all of the wines were very inexpensive much to our delight!

Just about all of the winemakers were at the height of their harvest so we got an extra treat tasting in this region. If people weren't out in the field picking, they were loading or driving tractors full of grapes with tons of the juicy purple beauties! We also came across women making meals for the workers for when they come in from the fields (our hostess included). It was really something to see - generations coming together along with friends and neighbors to get the grapes harvested. A real sense of community that is very hard to find.

As the sun was setting over the beautiful countryside, we sat outside our hotel, broke open a few of bottles of wine and drunk in the incredible beauty of our surroundings.

Dinner was at Cafe de La Bascule, the other restaurant in town, that just happened to be owned by Marie's father. Again, small town! When we arrived the chef came out of the open kitchen and simply said, "the Americans are here" and the hostess sat us outside. Apparently four women traveling together seem to stand out like sore thumbs!

Anyway, we decided to order a 2004 Fleurie form Domaine du Clos des Garandes (our hotel) just to keep it in the family!

I started off with ravioles aux champignons with truffles en gratinee, a rich creamy, decadent combination of raviolis with mushrooms in a cream sauce. The truffles were so faint (or non-existent) that I didn't really taste them, but the creaminess of the dish didn't really call for it.

For my main I chose filet mignon de porc roti au romarin. I thought I had ordered steak, but mistakenly got the roast pork with rosemary and it wound up to be a delightful accident! (guess who didn't have a dictionary?)

The chef kept looking out at us, perhaps in horror, since as usual we were passing around tastes of everyone's dish and going on and on about the food - in a good way, but in a loud four girls who've been drinking all day good way!

Dessert was a cheese course, which was basically a bunch of cheeses on a plate that was passed from table to table as it was ordered. Once again, this did not disappoint with the exception of one cheese that was so pungent, so foul, that the curling up of my face caused the table to break out in hysterics. The two English guys next to us however, took my repulsion as a challenge and ordered the cheese course as well and actually took a liking to the offensive cheese in question.

As dinner was winding down, we started chatting with these guys who were on their way to Nice in an RV with a scooter to pick up a car that one guy was given for free - what a great excuse for a road trip! We eventually were asked to leave our closing restaurant and retired to the restaurant next door (where we had lunch) to have a drink and a lot of laughs before calling it a night.

Tomorrow...the road to Provence leads thru Tain L'Herimatage, home of Valhrona chocolate!