I have just returned to the UK after ten glorious days in the Dordogne, where it was 38°C, the wine was cold, the cheese was plentiful and I ate enough duck to make me nervous around ponds.
Bergerac Airport is essentially two tin sheds and a runway, which, given the current state of European air travel, is rather wonderful. I landed, cleared customs in minutes and stepped straight into an oven.
I was staying with friends just outside Eymet, a beautiful medieval bastide town surrounded by vineyards, sunflower fields and the sort of countryside that makes you wonder why you live anywhere else.
Our first proper outing was Sunday lunch in the little hilltop village of Soumensac. Everyone brings their own tablecloth, plates, cutlery and glasses, grabs a table under the trees and buys lunch from local producers. There were rotisserie chickens, tomato salads, duck sausages, skewers and excellent pommes frites.
We had brought wine and beer with us, but you are encouraged to support local. So we bought two bottles none of us particularly liked and drank them anyway. Community spirit sometimes requires sacrifice.
By mid-afternoon, however, 38°C had defeated even the most committed lunchers and we retreated to the swimming pool.
The rest of the week followed a fairly rigorous schedule of markets, restaurants, cheese shops, vineyards and lying down afterwards.
We visited four daytime markets, a night market and an exceptionally good chocolatier. I am a dreadful chocolate snob, so praise from me is not given lightly. Most chocolate is merely taking up space where cheese could have been.
And there was a LOT of cheese.
By about day four, I deeply regretted not keeping a cheese log. Over ten days I reckon I tried at least 60. Fresh ones, hard ones, washed-rind ones, extremely smelly ones and several that looked as though they might get up and leave if you didn’t eat them quickly enough.
A fromagerie in Bergerac, owned by a friend of my hostess, was particularly wonderful. We bought a three-milk cheese so perfectly ripe that it needed eating almost immediately.
Obviously, we rose to the challenge.
Then there was the duck.
Foie gras, confit, duck salad, duck skewers, duck sausages. The Dordogne is absolutely determined that no visitor should leave wondering what happened to the local duck population. By the end of the week, I’d eaten so much duck that ordering fish felt practically vegetarian.
One of our more civilised lunches was in the gorgeous medieval town of Issigeac at L’Atelier, where we sat in a flower-filled courtyard and started, as all sensible lunches should, with Kir Royales.
My starter was an extraordinary collection of tomatoes: sun-blushed tomatoes in crisp pastry, tomato and pineapple salad, tomato water and tomato sorbet. It sounds like someone had lost a bet involving tomatoes, but it was absolutely delicious.
I followed it with Maigre, a firm white fish served with lobster foam, while everyone else continued their commitment to meat.
Then the cheese trolley arrived. This is one of the many occasions when France makes the rest of us look like amateurs. Why choose one cheese when a man can wheel 25 of them to your table and explain their life stories?
Somewhere during all this eating, I also fell in love with Pécharmant.
Pécharmant is a small red wine appellation just outside Bergerac, generally made from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec. We tried a different one with almost every meal and I didn’t meet a bottle I didn’t like.
So naturally I bought several.
A visit to a foie gras shop involving tastings of both foie gras and local wine also resulted in what can only be described as a credit-card incident. France is extremely good at separating me from my money.
Perhaps my favourite meal, purely on entertainment value, was at a tiny village restaurant apparently run by one man.
And I mean entirely by one man.
He appeared to be the maître d’, waiter, sommelier, chef, kitchen hand, receptionist, reservations manager, accountant and possibly the local mayor. Everything happened according to his timetable.
We declined apéritifs, which seemed to upset the natural order of things, and then waited 45 minutes for a drink. At one point he paraded a tray of cooking lamb around the dining room for everyone to admire. Whether this was marketing, entertainment or simply because he was proud of it, I have no idea.
There were two starter choices: foie gras or prawns in crispy wonton pastry. The foie gras portions were enormous. Not generous. Enormous. There was enough on each plate to concern an animal welfare organisation.
The prawns were marinated in vadouvan, a fragrant French-Indian curry blend, wrapped in pastry and fried until crisp. Too salty, but delicious.
Nothing happened until every single person in the restaurant had finished each course. Then the entire room was cleared and the next course arrived. You didn’t so much eat at this restaurant as participate in it.
With lunch we drank yet another wonderful Pécharmant, liked it so much that we visited the vineyard the following day and somehow ended up sitting down to charcuterie, cheese and another wine tasting.
At this point, my body had essentially become 40% cheese.
The vineyard was completely unpretentious, full of families and friends, and produced one of the nicest Chenin Blancs I have tasted in France. The second-generation winemakers had ignored local convention and planted Chenin simply because it was what they wanted to drink.
I rather love that. And really, that’s what I love about this corner of France.
The Dordogne isn’t flashy. It’s long lunches under trees, bustling markets, tiny producers, fabulous cheese, local wine, eccentric restaurateurs, fields full of sunflowers and a frankly alarming commitment to duck. Ten days of friends, markets, Pécharmant, foie gras, sunshine and approximately my own body weight in cheese.
I came home slightly heavier, considerably poorer and already wondering when as and when I go back in 2027 are you coming too……?
I am planning a small-group food and wine tour through this glorious part of France a chance to join me at the markets, meet the local producers, discover the wines of Bergerac and Pécharmant, eat some truly memorable food and settle in for the sort of long French lunches that simply cannot be rushed.
This won’t be France viewed through the window of a tour bus. It will be the France I love: generous, delicious, occasionally eccentric and best discovered around a table.
If seven days of cheese, wine, village markets, hidden restaurants and an entirely unreasonable amount of duck sound like your idea of a holiday, I would love you to come with me.
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