“Paris is NOT the real France, come to the gorgeous French countryside and we’ll buy French cheese and go wine-tasting”. I’m not going to argue with that. After telling our French friend (Jeanne) that the only part of France I have seen is Paris, she offered to show us the real France. So we embarked via train to her grandparents’ home in the eastern region of France. After we arrived at the Besancon Train Station, she drove us an hour through the villages surrounded by hibernating grape vineyards to the small village of Frontenay. The quiet dirt roads surrounded by land reminded me of the Polish countryside.

Jeanne driving us to her grandparents home in the French countryside!

On the first evening, we went wine tasting at a winery (Domaine Band Pere and Fils). I learned about a “yellow wine”, which I had never heard of. Apparently this type of white wine is specific to the Jura region of France. With hints of dried dates and walnuts, it was a completely unique taste differing from any wine. The woman attending to us however explained that it is a new taste being introduced to our palate – and that it takes time to acclimate to. We tried to put on our best “high-class” wine-tasting techniques but chuckled as we murmured between each other about what we might say about the wine. We studied her pouring technique and mimicked her swirling skill. But besides our amateur attempts to describe the wines ourselves, the woman was a helpful non-stop resource of facts and knowledge about the wines. Considering this was my first time wine tasting, I didn’t realize how great of an experience we had. Jeanne told me afterwards that she was surprised the woman went into such detail and time with us about all 9 of the wines we tasted – it was super informative and fun. I liked that by coming to a non-touristy winery, we could actually do a real and personal wine-tasting where the people working were actually interested in teaching and helping us. And I guess her time and generosity paid off since we walked away with 7 gorgeous French bottles and a sparkling wine on the house…

The baguettes were fresh and cheese semi-stinky.

Comte cheese is specific to this region of France and Jeanne took us to a cheese shop with 2 feet-diameter wheels of cheese. They cut the cheese like it was a block of chocolate or massive slice of pie and weighed it for you. My favorite was the cheese with the marble line in the middle – it had the consistency of Brie cheese and was delectable.

At the end of the quick weekend as her grandparents waved us goodbye, I wished I had more than a primitive knowledge of French. Without any understanding I was stuck smiling my biggest smile and doing the customary two cheek kiss (traditional light cheek touch of both cheeks) and laughing at the words she stated. Laughing and smiling has been pretty useful, as it is understood cross-culturally. Coming from Germany, it was pretty weird to be immersed in an area where I didn’t know anything people were saying – it felt very handicapping. And soon that night we were back in German Freiburg surrounded by the buildings, cobblestones, and lack of countryside flies.

Location: Jura, France