Sancerre to Mont Brouilly

    

Weds.14.11.07. We bought Sancerre at ‘William Maillot’ the local and most successful vintner, at the beginning the third leg of our adventure to Beaujeu. Luckily, we negotiated an early scare when the Doc’s car stalled at a major junction just outside the town. Previously we had stored the newly purchased wine in the boot of his car as much because both Kenny’s jeep and my car were already bursting with baggage buttressed by six crates of ‘Lidl’ pilsner. The solution to the breakdown was to push the lame vehicle over a canal bridge, park up then phone ‘Green Flag’. As images of this situation instantly flashed into my head potentially repeating itself in a less equitable situation I reminded Dave that “It sounds to me that the problem with the car might be terminal , if so do you think that we had better liberate our wine before it finally croaks”.

Remarkably Doc’s lumbering Volvo managed the trip to the Mont Brouilly Logis at Quencie en Beaujolais via Nevers, Moulins, across country to Charolles over the 2500m peak towering over the valley of l’Ardieres into Beaujeu where we met Julie and David Green who had just flown into Lyon on what they described as a bi-plane, scary. We all travelled together to visit the town of Beaujeu, the heart and ancient capital of the Beaujolais region. I cannot understand why such a dull, predictable urbanised industrialised sprawl could have such notoriety. Today was probably the most important day of their calendar, the celebration ‘Sarmentelle’ dinner, the release of the Nouveau and a 4,000 person gathering but none of this filled us with any sense of anticipation or enthusiasm. The ‘Doc’ by this time had realised that his initial £600 would not last the distance. He began to panic having worked out that he had only £30.00 remaining, given the future petrol hits as well as the cost of the accommodation. He also didn’t need the news, that none of the banks in the area were prepared to change his sterling into euros. Bummer. He reluctantly accepted a generous loan of 400 euros from David which consequently made him far too relaxed as he vowed to have the best meal of his life that night. After the briefest of promenades we decided to hit the bars around the central square until the action started. We eventually emerged from one of the bars to discover that the rows of previously empty tents now contained many hundreds of people swigging the local wine. The visitors carried their wine glass around their necks by means of a piece of string as they lurched from one tent to another. The French are normally ‘tidy drunks’ but even the most seasoned quaffer must have struggled through until midnight? It was a pity that we would miss all the excitement of the evening but we had booked a meal in the hotel restaurant and did not want to miss the promise of our first gourmet meal.

We assembled at eight for aperitifs of Kir Royale, this version containing white wine and blackberry liqueur. The meal was delightful, civilised and lengthy. The excesses of the night in Sancerre had caught up with everyone sensibly the focus was firmly on good food not buckets of grog. All except for Kenny and Norma, who periodically left the table for the back of the truck where several half litre bottles of Lidl lager had been stashed. For every fag break there was an equivalent ‘pils’ break. Each starter was quite different but several of the group had chosen a cream of mussel soup in wine, saffron, lemon warmly accommodating whole mussels. A creamed chicken breast, marinated venison in a blackcurrant sauce stole the honours for the main course with crème broulet shaving the best dessert from chocolate mousse. There was no midnight party as everyone was as ‘full as ticks’ still retaining a dangerously high water table from the night before. The bed beckoned by 11.45 everyone cordially trudged off leaving the Doc chugging on one last fag.