Plate du Jour

If you run your own blog, the great thing about holidays is that, everything you’ve seen, or almost everything, you can share with other people. Isn’t it cool, that even if you’re let’s say in California, Sydney or Tokyo, I can show you what was in Beaujolais like just yesterday! We are back to Lyon, and since Beaujolais is only 45 min drive from here, we decided to go on a one-day trip. I hope you will forgive me these tons of pictures! But honestly I could not resist. Beaujolais is absolutely gorgeous, with all those yellow stone houses and streets, green trees and flowers. My boyfriend has been there before, for me it was the second time, as we got there last year and simply decided to go back. We visited Oingt, Charnay, Ternand and a few other small villages on the way. If you’re into wine, wine tasting/making and all the rest about wine, you know of course, that Beaujolais is famous for its wine, but also for other products, like most of France anyway. Recently (well, about 40 years ago or so, but considering the whole wine making tradition, it is very much recently) this region became especially famous for so-called Beaujolais Nouveau– this wine is bottled only 6-8 weeks after the harvest, and it’s easy to recognize it, because its taste is simply not “matured” yet. I had it just yesterday, and believe me, once you try it, you will know it’s Beaujolais Nouveau. I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of this kind of wine, but I appreciate the fact, that it has to be harvested by hand, and remember that Beaujolais Nouveau- if you get a bottle or two- will never get better than what you just got. It does not mature. Beaujolais Nouveau is intended for immediate drinking, where other kinds of Beaujolais- and I bought one bottle of Beaujolais dated as 2011- will actually nicely mature and can be stored for more than one year. However from what I was told, in general Beaujolais is not this kind of wine you would store in your cellar for years- but if you would like to know more about these things in general, let me know and I will talk to my boyfriend’s dad, since he knows a lot about wine- his wine cellar is impressive, and I was lucky to try some amazing stuff dated like 1995, 1999 or even today 2003. Believe me, when you see this wine, you don’t ask any questions. You simply drink it up!!

Just have a look at these vineyards, I find them very different from those ones I’ve seen in Alsace. These grapes are tiny, and it’s a different kind. This time no matter what I decided to bring my macro lens, so I could show you how gorgeous they are. It was about 1 kg more in my bag, so I hope I’ve done well and you can see all this beauty in the field! I decided to go for a bigger format of the pictures, because collage wouldn’t make any sense in this case.

Wine making culture elements are visible everywhere, like this old wine pressing machine. I already showed you some of them in Alsace. As you can see the technique is almost the same, regardless of the region, or the country I dare say.

What I found interesting, was this little house. I’ve seen a few of those, and always next to the field. I think they were used as some kind of caves, for a quick wine or cheese storage, but I have to check it out.

Among many things that Beaujolais is famous for, there is also this yellow stone all over the place! Each house is made out of it, and it looks lovely. This part of France is sunny anyway, and imagine these yellow houses everywhere, which makes your eyes almost sore. The sky is crazy blue, and yesterday it was 30 C! The air was almost stand still, and only a gentle breeze made our trip bearable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining but it was damn hot!!

Imagine you were the owner of this terasse and any time you have your breakfast or lunch outside, you could admire this view… no comments right?

And it’s like that everywhere. No matter which way you turn around there are these stunning views, it’s almost intimidating! At some point I started taking pictures in Auto mode, which I NEVER do. But everything looked so beautiful, that I was afraid to spoil it! We loved those narrow streets, and medieval ruins of the castle- the whole region is very much like brought straight from Middle Ages due to its architecture and the stone used as a building material.

This is the castle… or rather what’s left of it 🙂

And the flowers. Look how beautiful they are, and so perfectly blended into the landscape.

While wondering around in one of the villages- Oingt, we found a tourist information point, which turned out to be a museum. If you’re into music and old instruments, you can see here real beauties from XIX and the beginning of XX century.

Look at the picture below. This is an old schedule, like a program of what was supposed to be played during the evening! Isn’t it cool?!

That was very nosy of me I know… just a little sneak peak of a courtyard, I loved that house and couldn’t help myself…

You probably noticed that I talk only about the wine and villages but nothing about food. Well, it was way too hot to eat, but we had nice and very simple lunch- including the famous Beaujolais Nouveau 😉 The salad was yummy, avocado and couscous!

Also in Beaujolais you can buy the most wanted French foods, such as confit de canard, and I am a happy owner of those two jars you can see on the picture below 🙂 .When the time comes we will try them- I already have some ideas on my mind!

Of course I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t go for some cookies 🙂

After we did- or I should say- I did my little shopping, it started getting late, and it was just about time to take off but I’m sure we will be back again!