Well, one of the reasons we moved back across the world was to be closer to family and lifelong friends and the last few weeks have been great, with visitors from Jersey, Ireland and England popping over to see our little part of France.
The weather has been kind and to be swimming still in October has been an added bonus. Visitors are also a great excuse to try out recipes, restaurants and tourist spots. There’s something special about reminiscing with childhood friends, especially over a bottle of French wine😂
A local spot to visit is Maison Gautier – a Cognac house in our village of Aigre. It was fascinating to learn the history of both Cognac and our locality. “Unfortunately” we’ve also discovered their rather lovely Cognac liqueur!
We had a lovely guide who spoke excellent English (with a gorgeous strong French accent) and our tour started with a power point introduction to the making of Cognac and local history covering some 500 years.
Our local Germeville Chateau ( opposite our place) was once a part of the Gautier estate.
The cellars where the ageing takes place,each barrel is marked with the local area where the grapes were grown, the year of harvest and the initials of the farmer that the “eau de vie “ came from.
The blending room where the cellarmaster samples and blends for quality and consistency.
A secure special cellar where only the oldest barrels are stored. Maison Gautier produced and still retains the oldest bottle of Cognac on record.
No, not the oldest bottle but it will still set you back a few thousand!
The heavy gates that secure those special barrels.
The final part of our tour saw us sampling 6 different Cognacs, from the basic (for making “cocktails “) through to some rather special ones. Thanks Marjorie and “Salut”
In between eating, drinking and being tourists there was some garden harvesting to be done. Such a novelty for us to have a productive garden but then something has to be done with the produce!🤔
Autumn is here so blackberries were gathered from the hedgerows to add to our apples for jam making and freezing. The tomato plants were laden so Jamie Oliver came to the rescue with an easy “tomato sauce” recipe – a great base for pasta dishes and now the figs have begun to ripen – more jam and chutneys. Mum if you could see me now, “a kitchen goddess”😂😂
We even have table grapes along the back wall.
Jars of Jersey Black Butter, a traditional old recipe made with apples, cider, cloves and cinnamon. Ready to be put away until Christmas when the spicy spread is lovely on warm toast.
No better lunch, crusty bread, local cheeses and produce from the garden. And finally our little local Supermarket put on a great display for the Autumn Harvest.
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