My only two real goals for the driving tour through France were to eat cheese and drink wine. We achieved (and surpassed) both goals in the first night in Fuisse. Well off the beaten path, we had stumbled on the true French countryside…the countryside and rolling vineyards.
We arrived at our French country inn (Domaine la Sourse des Fees), were greeted (in English, surprisingly) by our innkeeper “Jim” and shown our “room”, which was more like an apartment, with living room, bedroom, bathroom and porch overlooking the backyard and rolling hills of vineyards in the near distance. After dropping off our bags we headed directly to the main house for a tasting of the local wines and cheese. The wines, 5 in all (3 chardonnays, 1 red and 1 sparkling rose from the Pouilly-Fuisse appellation) were perfectly complimented by the local aged goat cheese. The cheese was tasty and I realized that French wines could grow on me. And not to be completely spoiled, but Jim translated everything from French into English for us, explaining the different years, timing of harvest and style of wines.
Unfortunately, being spoiled by Jim, only set us up for failure later that night at dinner. Upon being seated, Martin politely asked the waitress if we could order in English. He was answered with a resounding non (French for No). And so began our 7 course dinner completely blind. My starter of Tarrine Maison, thought to be soup, turned out to be a plate of compressed mystery meat and the unidentified pancake side dish (or were they potatoes) still remain a mystery. Thankfully we got the wine right and you can’t really mess up when ordering off the cheese cart (the waitress had given up at that point so we resorted to hand signals and pointing).
Overall the dinner was great and the language barrier only added to the fun of the evening. The language barrier also allowed for Martin to innocently leave the restaurant with the half full bottle of wine without a cork.
Fuisse got us going on a good start! Sad to leave, we were heading to the Valley of the Volcanoes…Royat, France.
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