Day 20 – 22 – Life is settling down after the harvest.

Well, it appears that meteorologists in France have the same high level of accuracy as their US counterparts. Yep, it rained again today and it looks like it’s going to rain tomorrow too.

Staying in the house makes the weather much more tolerable, as we have room to roam. I would be a little claustrophobic if we were staying in a hotel room. We are getting out daily, but raincoats and umbrellas do take away from the mood.

We’ve decided to try and visit the abbey at Pontigny when we get a dry day. If there are additional decent days, we have a visit to Vezelay penciled in. Now we just need some cooperative weather.

We did run over to the boulangerie this morning to get sandwiches and some sweets for lunch. Our favorite woman was happy to see us and very welcoming. Yesterday when we were there, I ordered ham and cheese sandwiches, to which she replied that they didn’t have any, but did have the jambon and beurre. Today, I ordered jambon and beurre sandwiches and she replied that they didn’t have any, but they did have jambon and cheese. C’est la vie!

We treated ourselves and bought eclairs again today. One chocolate and one banana, plus an extra tigrès for a late afternoon snack.

We’ve been watching the hustle and bustle around the wineries over our days here and it seems to finally be settling down. At first it was truckloads of grapes being delivered from the vineyards, then the winery activity during the crush and tanking of the juice and start of the fermentation. Then spotlessly cleaning up the equipment and winery by power washing every inch and item. Then there was a bit of a lull, but we did see many celebration dinners taking place in the restaurants.

Today, we watched as a tractor trailer pulled up and loaded pallets of wine. I’m guessing that it’s the 2022 or 2023 vintages making their way to the distributors or retailers. I suppose there is still plenty going on behind the closed doors, but on the surface it appears calm.

While biding our time, I’ve been playing Euchre on my computer. I think I’ve gone from knowing the basic rules to understanding some strategy. The devious side of me enjoys when I can help in setting back my opponents. A few more rainy days and I might try Backgammon.

The afternoon did pass by somewhat quickly, helped by my energy inducing tigrès snack.

We cleaned up and changed for dinner. Tonight we are going back to ‘Chablis Wine Not’. The walk over was quick and it actually was not raining. Walking in feels like a scene from ‘Cheers’ when Norm enters the bar. Mind you, we’ve only been there three times, but every one of the staff greeted us or stopped over to say hello.

We decided that we would make it another tapas evening. Our waitress is the best and loves coaching me through the ordering process. It’s like having a French teacher who rewards you with wine and food instead of giving you ‘C’s’ on test papers.

Our tapas this evening consisted of veal terrine, an assortment of cheeses, mini Croque Monsieur sandwiches, tempura chicken nuggets and fresh bread. Everything was delicious.

We also splurged on a bottle of 2017 Domaine François Raveneau Forêt 1er Cru Chablis. It was divine.

We’ve been trying to experience different wines with each dinner and it has been both a treat and a pleasure. A treat because we cannot usually get these wines back home and a pleasure because they have all been delicious and so different. It’s been quite the learning experience, and a pleasurable one at that, to taste the nuances between the various climats. Finally some learning I can appreciate!

And then the icing on the cake for the evening was a bowl of chocolate mousse – yum!

Following another wonderful evening, we took a quick walk back to the house. The streets were wet and quiet and we didn’t see another soul wandering around – just a couple of passing cars.

Back home, we locked up and headed upstairs to relax for a while before heading to dreamland.

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Thursday morning rolled around and it was a lazy morning. It was raining, but we needed to move along as the housekeeper would be arriving at 10:30 am. We showered, dressed and then grabbed our tablets and laptop to keep us busy while she was here.

Anaïs is really nice and does an excellent job of cleaning up. It’s not like we trash the house between her visits, but she keeps it clean and fresh and we appreciate what she does. Today would be her last time with us, as we leave next week. Since my conversational French is not the best, I wrote her a little note expressing our gratitude that she seemed touched by. We said our goodbyes and off she went.

Sue made some tea and we enjoyed it with some bread crisps we bought and some butter and apricot jam. It was a nice little lunch, as we both wanted to avoid a heavier snack with dinner tonight.

We did treat ourselves to some wine during the afternoon. It was a tasty 2020 Domaine Laroche Blanchot. We still have three bottles of wine that need to be consumed before next week, so we have our work cut out for us. (snicker – right!)

Good news – the weather has been updated and it looks like Saturday is going to be dry. We may be able to do a little sightseeing. We have not used the vehicle as much as we expected…our reluctance to drive and then walk around in the cold and rain being the main factor. Hopefully, we’ll squeeze in a few day trips in the days to come.

Starting with tonight’s dinner, we have begun our “Dernière bouchée” or “Last Bite” Tour. It will be our last time through the group of restaurants we’ve been frequenting while here in Chablis.

Cue the funky seventies music, turn on your black lights and lava lamp and get ready for food porn. The rain has turned this into a place to snuggle up with your favorite recipe and party slow and easy.….

First on the list was ‘Au Fil du Zinc‘. As one of the top restaurants in Chablis, they offer up some top notch cuisine.

Tonight we once again went with the entrée-main-dessert menu and loved every morsel.

We started with a glass of Mont de Milieu 1er Cru Chablis from some Domaine that I forgot the name of… but it was fabulous. It was a perfect way to ease into the evening and went well with the amuse bouche selections.

We ordered our meals and thought a nice red burgundy would be a perfect pairing. Our wine selection for the evening was a 2014 1er cru Nuit Saint Georges Les Chaignots from Domain Robert Chevillon. It needed to breathe a little bit then opened into a classic Burgundian wine. Lots of earthiness, mushrooms and red and black fruits. Ooh la la…

For our starter, we both chose the roasted ceps (mushrooms) with garlic, figs and Ibaïama ham in a parsley coulis with brown butter. The flavors melted into each other and it was delicious.

Next came our mains. Sue selected the seared duck. It came with duck two ways: first was a slice of breast meat with a crispy skin and second was the dark meat that was formed into a small crispy ‘meatball’ and dusted with nuts. It was accompanied by glazed beets with black cardamom, damsoms and wild mint.

For my choice, I went with the roasted game birds in a puff pastry. The puff pastry was also stuffed with some ceps and fois gras. The dish was plated with roast pumpkin, figs, a dab of crème fraîche and a port wine reduction.

Dessert was a creamy gorgonzola cheese with black figs, port and tonka beans and a warm brioche bun stuffed with gorgonzola. I’m certainly glad that I saved a little wine.

At this point, even non-smokers light up to relax. *Wink* It was an awesome ‘one last time’ meal and we both were chill and sated.

But there was more to come. Two delectable little tarts showed up at our table, presented by our smiling server. Wow – what an evening.

Cue the French film noir people. The walk home was again down damp, empty streets with only the streetlights to light the way. We did pass by one couple walking in the opposite direction, but otherwise we didn’t even see any vehicles.

When we arrived home, we decided to just chill upstairs rather than lighting up the whole house. It’s cozy and easy to just turn off the lights and go to sleep when we’re ready.

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We opened our eyes this morning to another rainy day. I swear the weathermen is toying with us. It doesn’t matter, we have things today that we want to take care of.

We loafed around for a bit before getting cleaned up for the day. With all the big meals lately, we decided to make this a stay at home dinner day, so today’s visit to the boulangerie was strategically planned out. We purchased sandwiches, some quiche and a couple of pastries that will provide us with enough to make two smaller meals.

Our lady friend at the boulangerie was busy today, so we made sure to move right along with our order. No chit-chatting today so the line would move along.

When we left, we made a quick stop at the boutique two doors down. They have a little bit of everything – food, wine, candy and items that would make good souvenirs. We’ve walked by a few times and never really did more than just window shop. They had some nice items, but we feared that they would get crushed in the luggage. I should have bought a corkscrew…

Arriving back at the house, Sue put on some water for tea and then we had our lunch. Nothing fancy, but fresh and delicious.

During the afternoon, we relaxed and talked about dinner plans in Paris. To put us in the mood, we opened a bottle of wine to help with the thought process. We decided to try two different places next Saturday and Sunday. We were reading reviews and looking at the menus for both locations and decided to try them both. That means, for the first time in many trips, we will not be dining at Willi’s Wine Bar.

However, the two new restaurants look to be good choices. We will be going to Le Violons d’Ingres in the 7th arrondissement and Baieta in the 5th arrondissement. We were able to secure a reservation at both places, so now we don’t have to worry about not eating over the weekend.

We confirmed our hotel reservation, so we should be all set. Having that taken care of, we just relaxed for a while and checked out the route for tomorrow’s drive.

It seemed like we were getting away with something when dinner time came and we didn’t have to change or go out. We enjoyed the second part of our earlier meal, finished off the wine and then watched some Youtube to finish off the evening.

We have plans for tomorrow…let’s see if the weather cooperates.