Just wine, cheese and bread

The year was 2006, early May, and we were searching in France for wineries.  What a pleasant surprise to arrive at this sight; the winery of Henri Bourgeois.  We were in the Loire Valley and traveled to the village of Chavignol. Henri Bourgeois largely produces Sauvignon Blanc wines under the Sancerre appellation and has many single vineyard bottlings which are generally rated 90 or above by Wine Spectator.  

Not only is this a beautiful modern building with a fantastic tasting room, but the people who work here are so friendly and welcoming and....they speak perfect English.  That always helps, a lot!!  We bought two bottles of Sancerre for 10.60 Euro each, after sampling a lot of wine.  The kind gentleman guiding us also gave us a corkscrew with the winery name on it.  Always handy while traveling.  (sigh)

This last week we found a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc by this vintner and enjoyed it so much last night with a repeat of the "Vietnamese Caramelized Shrimp".

  If you have French wine, you need French cheese.  Stopped at this fromagerie (cheese store) and bought crottins of cheve.  A crottin is a small round, possibly 2 inches in diameter.  You can buy very fresh and very, very aged.  We picked up a sampler of 6 different aged cheeses.  So delicious.  So now, we have the wine and the cheese....you guessed it.....

BREAD!!  Isn't that the most beautiful bread and pastry window?  Picked up a baguette and a couple of pastries for our evening dessert.

We have never taken a tour in France.  The Trout is the researcher and finds an area to visit and then plots out the places we want to see.  We rent a small apartment or house and eat breakfast in our own kitchen, tour during the morning, eat out lunch at a spectacular restaurant, tour in the afternoon and then head to our rental and have dinner and a bottle of wine at home.  It has worked out so well for us.  The last few years we have used our GPS that has international capacities and it works every time.  What we did realize after the first time, you really need to know the zip codes of the villages you want to visit.  Much easier putting in a zip code than trying to type in the village names.