Progress in Poil Rouge?
I've been coming to Poil Rouge for the past 23 years. Poil Rouge is a hamlet in beautiful St-Gengoux-de-Scissé, strategically located in the Northern Mâconnais.
The Famous Louis/Dressner Compound in Poil Rouge Sud
Everything here is changing rapidly as Poil Rouge is being dragged into modern times. Just this week, I was able to install a DSL connection, along with a Wi-Fi connection. Strangely, my neighbors also have Wi-Fi! I found out when I installed my router and Wi-Fi card and noticed there was another network available!
When I first started coming to this region, we didn't have Wi-Fi. We had Citroën Deux Chevaux's everywhere. These beautiful cars were symbols of the French countryside and blended in with the local vineyards, Charollais cows and goats. I used to think that every 2 CV had a mind, memory and soul that I, as an American, would never be able to understand. The 2 CV's are now gone and instead we have Wi-FI.
My neighbors are a charming young couple who strangely enough are wine geeks. They bought their house from the inheritors of the Fongey family. When I first came to Poil Rouge, Madame Fongey was still alive and over 100-years-old. Madame Fongey would sing at local gatherings in the local dialect, the local patois, a language that is long gone. The local dinners and gatherings are also long gone. We're all too busy surfing the internet.
Madame Fongy had been the village seamstress and her husband had been the town cryer. In the old days, before my time, Monsieur Fongy would travel from hamlet to hamlet in his 2 CV, stop and blow on his trumpet, and make important civic announcements afftecting the population at large. Soon, the City Hall will probably have a blog where we will be kept abreast of all breaking municipal developments. While we've gained DSL and WiFi, we've lost other aspects of daily life:
- Nobody harvests grapes by hand anymore. Everyone uses machines. You can find pictures of people harvesting our local vineyards by doing a Google search under St-Gengoux-de-Scissé and Vendange. Everyone uses herbicide and the vineyards look like the desert. Hopefully, the local cooperative will rethink their work ethic in the next few years. At least, one can hope. I find the look of the vineyards depressing and every so often surf to a virtual vineyard site to reassure myself that someone is still doing good work.
- We used to have three bakers pass by every days in their small trucks. They would honk their horns and you would run out and buy your baguette. Those of us with good credit ratings could hang a bag on our walls and the baker would leave bread for us. We used to have the baker from Cruzille (retired eight years ago), the baker from Perrone (long gone) and the delicious bread from the organic baker from Blanot (retired two years ago). Now, there is a truck that comes by only four times a week from Azé, where the quality of the bread is standard. Downtown St-Gengoux has a small grocery which serves as a bread depot for the competent baker in Lugny. But, home delivery is but a memory and the quality of bread has gone down. I can still get good bread if I travel 25 Kilometers to Mâcon where there is a great organic baker, who unfortunately does not have a web site.
- We used to have three butchers coming by every day in their small trucks. There was our local guy, Monsieur Metra and Monsieur Bataillard from Azé. Monsieur Metra retired over a dozen years ago and no one took over his store. Monsieur Bataillard retired two years ago and no one took over his store. Luckily there is still Monsieur Aubertin in Lugny, who has great meat, but I have to get into my car to travel to Lugny since he doesn't drive from village to village. Now that the DSL has penetrated the area, maybe we'll have something like Fresh Direct in the near future.
- There used to be goats all over the area and dozens of goat cheese producers. Blanot, a beautiful village in the hillsides toward Cluny, used to have over 500 goats. There are not about 75. Thankfully, the best goat cheese producer in the Mâconnais, Marc Grozellier, is still in business, churning out delicious cheese from organically farmed goats.
- St-Gengoux-de-Scissé used to have a Hotel-Bar-Restaurant. It is now empty. We can get a meal in Azé or drive to Mâcon. There are no current home delivery options, but who knows what the future will bring? The Mâcon tourism web site has an excellent listing of local eateries.
- Lotissements are springing up in our village and every adjoining village. Lotissements are plots of new prefabricated houses which are ugly as sin and which ruin the look of the area. Unfortunately, the local authorities make no effort to control the architecture and standards of these homes and future generations will have no memory of how charming this area used to be. Unfortunately, there are strict restrictions if you buy an old stone home and do renovations. But, if you build a new home, you are free to construct whatever monstrosity fits your budget and desires.
- Everyone is getting older and I'm slowly watching the village die off. Who can forget how beautifully the Paillard used to dance at the Bal Populaire on July 13th? Now the village authorities play bad disco music and French rap songs. I'll probably die soon myself, before I have the chance to learn how to tango.
- We no longer have the Brioche du Dimanche. This was a local specialty, whose finest practioner was the the baker in Aze who retired years ago. The Sunday Brioche was like a large, fat tarte and absolutely delicious. We would eat it every week with some butter and confiture. Mmmm.
- American wine importers spend their summers here, staying in old farmhouses, crowding out the local residents who are forced to build new homes in lotissements.
- Global warming leads to hotter and hotter summers here and local bloggers, equipped with DSL and Wi-Fi connections have to take a break from blogging and take their Sunday afternoon nap.
wow! the vineyards look like dessert! are they good enough to eat? do you want to eat them? what kind of dessert do they look like? baked alaska? tiramisu? bananas foster??
Man, Joe you need to lighten up. Aren't you supposed to be on vacation?
All is lost when the village starts to sell Velveeta.
mmmmm tasty processed food stuff
Joe, tango dancing is easier to master if you drink a lot of Malbec. Just let me know when you want to head to Buenos Aires and learn how to properly dance the tango. I know some instructors there and getting a wi-fi connection shouldn't be too difficult. I could also hook you up in Mendoza, where the tango may not be as good as Buenos Aires but you could stroll through the vineyards of Malbec and Torrontes as you soak up the local color. This will make your tango dancing feel all the more authentic and from the heart, rather than the showy stuff you see in the dance contests that they show on TV all the time.
-Eden (soaking up local terroir wherever I go)