Monday 12 December 2011

I won’t be long love…. I’m just nipping down the Château!




I remember well the days, back in the UK, when shopping for wine generally meant a trip to the supermarket or off licence. More often than not, it was a bottle of mediocre and generally overpriced wine shoved hastily in the shopping basket after work or frantically trying out the numerous “wines of the week” or current promotions in order to search for a palatable tipple. It never seemed easy to choose wines and we never had the time. Well, that’s not how we do it anymore…….

Last weekend we spent a splendid afternoon in blissful early winter sunshine, driving around the wine Chateaux and many farms in the Dordogne region of Bergerac. Less well known than the Bordeaux varieties, one of the top quality wines produced by the Dordogne region is the Bergerac “Pecharmant” appellation. Situated to the northeast of Bergerac town it lies on predominantly south-facing slopes, covered with approximately 1,000 acres of vines. It produces very rich red wines with excellent ageing potential, with considerable complexity and finesse. Most of them are perfect for drinking now too!!

The actual process of choosing our wines was every bit as romantic as you could imagine. Armed with our “Hachet” wine guide and a few hours to spare, we drifted around the rolling hillsides, from producer to producer, trying the various wines and buying a dozen or so bottles at each stop. The producers of these wines vary from large and famous names, producing many tens of thousands of bottles, to the smallest farms making perhaps 5-6000 bottles a year from about 4 hectares of vines. When arriving, we were always warmly welcomed and then treated to a full description of each of the wines on offer, the chance to taste them all and even complete and unprompted tours of the full wine making facilities. One of the winemakers even sits you down the lounge of his farmhouse whilst he lets you sample his much loved products!!

Even though we have lived here for many years and can buy the wines of France very easily, you simply cannot beat the sheer thrill of visiting the Châteaux yourself and the satisfaction of choosing you own wines to suit your exact taste. The South-west of France including the neighbouring Bordeaux appellations, produces some of the world’s finest wines. We felt very privileged to be able to take a great day out to step back and appreciate the area as well as supporting our local producers directly and saving money as a result.

PS: I won’t tell you how carried away we got but suffice to say that we now have enough wine in our cellar to last us until Christmas 2015!!

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Full circle for French cheese!

We adore our life here in the Dordogne region of France. We have now lived here for many years, have built successful businesses, have made many friends, have got married here and have enjoyed the birth and the raising (ongoing project of course) of our 2 young children in the village community, and we feel just about as integrated as one could be....

But, even hardened expats suffer cravings for some of those good old fashioned foodstuffs that you just cant get (easily) in our beloved Dordogne region of France. One thing we love to have is real thick rashers of smoked back bacon. Sorry, there it is and you cannot get it here for sensible money.

Luckily, help is at hand and there are some excellent services who provide regular deliveries to the region from the UK. You place an order online and they deliver it here. Brilliant.

I don't think i have honestly ever laughed as much as when we opened our latest "parcel" from the UK. We had only ordered (this time from Asda) a couple of packs of bacon but somehow our order seemed to have got mixed up with an item from another customer's goodies. What did we find inside?.... a pack of "Asda" own label Bleu d'Auvergne cheese!!!

Some poor soul had ordered his or her favourite French cheese, a cheese which is widely available in every supermarket in France, online, from Asda in Brackley to be shipped to the Dordogne region of south-west France. Arrghh! You got to love some people :-)

Vat rates on eating out and home renovations set to rise

As part of the French government’s ongoing austerity plans, an increase in the current reduced rate of VAT increase has now been voted through by MPs in France.

The normal rate of VAT (TVA in France) is 19.6%. The reduced rate of VAT currently applies to a wide range of goods and services such as home renovations and restaurant meals. The current rate of 5.5% will rise to 7% although certain areas such school canteen meals in France have been spared.

Despite the increase the reduced rate at 7% still looks a good deal given the normal rate, in our opinion!

Extra road safety measures on the way in France

With effect from early 2012, all drivers in France will have to carry a breath test kit in their vehicles as part of new safety measures to be introduced with the aim of cutting the roads death toll.

Other measures include 400 new speed cameras, including high-tech radar units that operate from moving police cars and measures to bring in automatic speed reduction systems in cars.

Despite severe criticism, President Sarkozy denies that these measures are a designed as a sure fire way to increase revenues for the French government.