Coq Au Vin - One of the great dishes of France and I don't mean chicken here! Mom!...................

As a youngster, at least once a week at home we had Coq au Vin ( made with a stewing chicken) and although I learned to like it and look forward to it, it was not until I got to France many years later and had the real thing that I really fell in love with this classic dish, which one hardly sees on the menu anymore; except in far away  places in Burgundy, in small family run restaurants.

This old country dish from France, the word Coq is the French word for cock or rooster. In traditional stock farming, cocks which were good breeders were kept as long as they could fulfill their function, They would be several years old before they were killed and therefore needed long and slow braising in a casserole. Of course these days, chefs world wide use chickens, but it ain't the same.
The dish when it comes to your table must look almost red/black in color and have a pungent wine aroma and flavor. Use the best burgundy wine to make it...
Its a hearty dish and well worth trying to find.
I found such at a small restaurant that specializes in that type of preparation along one of the tiny off shoots of the Burgundy canals and go back to it year after year. It's an acquired taste, but oh! what a dish!!