Saturday 24th September 2022 – Eguisheim, France

Today and tomorrow Eguisheim are holding a New Wine Festival and we walked down into the town at 11:30 to see what was going on. It turned out to be a low-key affair. The promised live music turned out to be one man with an electric piano who titled himself, very optimistically, as an orchestra. The new wine was intriguing, cloudy and tasting of grape juice it was probably alcoholic but tasted innocuous but pleasant. We set off on another stroll around the town and, as 13:00 approached, we tried to find somewhere for lunch. Many places are closed as this is low season and a couple of places were full but eventually we found a table in Le Dagsbourg, advertised as a pizzeria. When we got in, it was obvious that most of the customers were locals, always a good sign. We both had a ‘tarte flambée’, an Alsace version of pizza, rectangular in shape with a very thin base and various toppings but traditionally cream, smoked bacon and onion. We had the ‘forestiere’ that had mushrooms and cheese as additional ingredients. It was very good, the thin base allowing all of the flavours of the toppings to come through. The staff were really friendly and I asked the waitress about how the dough base was made. She was very helpful and gave me some hints. She also, backed up by the owner, recommended Schneider pre-made bases available in local supermarkets. Obviously not as good as their tartes flambées but the best of the pre-prepared bases. Jane finished with a coffee but I couldn’t resist the café gourmand – a coffee with a selection of 3 mini deserts and it was brilliant.
After a cheery farewell we continued on our walk ending up back at the main square and the New Wine Festival. It was still low-key and the same ‘orchestra’ was playing. We picked up a mixed case of wine from one of the multitude of wine producers in the town and headed back to the van.

Photos: The New Wine Festival; Le Dagsbourg restaurant – highly recommended; The Le Dagsbourg café gourmand; One of the wineries on the way into town from the campsite – grapes arrive in the yellow bins and a tractor and trailer remove the waste after the pressing.