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
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