Au Bon Accueil at Champlost Burgundy

 A few weeks ago my wife and I visited Champlost in the Auxerre arrondissement of Burgundy to dine at the "Au Bon Accueil"l restaurant before visiting some relatives. Au Bon Accueil is loosely translated, by me, as "The Warm Welcome". This was a Routier style restaurant which is frequented by lorry drivers, commercial travellers and local workers. The restaurant was full which is always a good sign. No one, in France, goes to a restaurant that does not serve good food and wine. I think that I was the only foreigner in the restaurant not that I was made to feel unwelcome - National Front attitudes had not penetrated here - well at least in the restaurant.

The food was traditionally French so we chose to eat faux fillet steak washed down with a half bottle of Irancy Red. The food was excellent and so was the wine.

We drank a bottle of Matthieu Antunes Irancy red 2013. This wine was excellent and had the typical taste of an Irancy and unique to the region. There are so many nondescript wines which could come from anywhere and quite often they are labelled with the grape variety. Irancy red is made from the Pinot Noir grape but the producers do not need to boast about it. Most Irancy producers produce the finest of wines at very reasonable prices.

Our three course meal with wine cost us around Eur 40. You rarely get a high quality meal for two with an excellent bottle of wine in the UK for 40 Eur. In the UK you have to pay big bucks for decent food and you also might have to suffer the indignity of being addressed as "guys". But, "guys" and good food and wine rarely go together.

They don't have an expression for "guys" in French to address both men and women together; perhaps no one tried to blow up their parliament!
Good wine in France also comes with the name of the region rather than the grape variety and good manners dictate that no one is called "guys" especially women - eh les gars.


http://www.antunes.matthieu.sitew.com/Notre_Etiquette.F.htm#Nos_Vins_Rouges.C

Alpa Zeta 'R' Valpollicella Ripasso Superiore 2012 - DOC

Valpollicella Ripasso is one of my favourite wines and a good one is full of fruit flavour.  'R' from Alpha Zeta is a classic example of this wine. Ripasso wines use a technique which " re-ferments" the standard Valpollicela using the lees leftover from the production of Amarone. This improves the concentration of flavours and the structure of the wine. The ripasso technique has been used for centuries.

Valpollicella Ripasso is an individual wine which retains some of the structure and taste of the standard wine but its flavour is more concentrated and the wine has a fuller body. Sometimes it has been referred to as a "poor man's " Amarone but this is not true. Ripasso is a great wine in its own right. The wine is much more approachable than "Amarone" and it does not need to be drunk with heavy food. It goes down well with both Italian and French cuisine. We drank Alpa Zeta 'R' wine with rib of beef cooked in French style by my wife. It also went down well with French and English cheeses.

Alpa Zeta 'R' is produced by Liberty Wines who deploy the skills of Matt Thomson, a winemaker and New Zealander to bring out the best of the Corvina and Rondinella grapes and the ripasso tradition.

This wine has its own individualistic flavour - dare I say New World - whilst retaining the characteristics of the Veneto region's wines. This is wine is exceptional value for money as you can buy it for around £10 a bottle. It is well worth tracking down a bottle or two. One to drink now and one to drink in two or three years as the 2012 will improve in the bottle if kept under favourable conditions. Appellation rules dictate that the wine must be sealed with a cork rather than a screw cap, so lay it on its side.

http://libertywines.co.uk/index.htm?pageto=prddtldrt&productCD=AZ117

http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-53507-0001-alpha-zeta-r-valpolicella-superiore-ripasso-veneto-italy