France Chapter 6
Beaune
Thursday, September 20th and we are leaving Provence, heading north to the Burgundy region. We took a train to Beaune, where our driver was waiting to transfer us to our hotel, Maison Maurice, inside the old walled city. It looks like a small wine shop from the street, but it also has several rooms as a bed and breakfast. Our room is up two flights on the narrow circular stairway. It is spacious, lit by skylights and very comfortable.
Just a short walk from our hotel and we are at the tasting room of Joseph Drouhin. One of the largest producers in the Burgundy region, they now also have a vineyard in Oregon. We visited the cellar and began training our palettes about Burgundy wines and our minds on the complexities of the region. One would think with only two varieties of grapes (Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay ) it would not be too hard. We hope to have it figured out in the next couple of days.
We had only to walk a few steps down the block to a nice little wine bar for a light, tapas style dinner looking at the square of the Notre Dame cathedral. Nothing fancy but very good and an introduction to Burgundy wine. Off to bed to be ready for a day of exploring and tasting in the Cote de Beaune.
Our guide for the next two days is Jeremy who was born in Dijon, and raised around the Beaune region. After trying a few other jobs, he decided to return to the wine field as a licensed tour guide as well as a wine guide. He met us promptly and we are off for the task of figuring out the 2000 years of Burgundy. As we drive out to the vineyards he explains the basics of the region’s terroir: its geological history, it’s weather patterns, soils, the exposure of the vineyards and its long history in wine. The Burgundy wine region runs through a long narrow valley which is divided into two areas: Cote de Beaune to the south of the city, and Cotes du Nuits to the north. Today we will tour the Cote du Beaune area, starting with a drive through the vineyards to see the geography, soils and vineyards. The area was created by a tectonic shift, lifting the Alps mountains, and lowering these valleys. This earthquake raised river rock and limestone as well as depositing clay soils. Thousands of years later, glaciers carved narrow canyons down to the valley. The resulting unique terroirs provide distinct growing areas for vineyards. The grapes have distinct flavor differences, resulting in wines of particular character being produced very near to one another. To retain these important distinctions, there are strict rules regarding winemaking; in addition to growing only Pinot Noir and Chardonnay no blending of other varieties is allowed.
Wine has been produced here for 2,000 years, first by the Romans. The most important development was during the Middle Ages, when the land was owned by Lords. In the 1400’s the monks in abbeys developed the vineyards through donations from the Lords. The French Revolution in 1789 expelled the Lords and monks from Burgundy, and the land was divided into small family estates. There are about 70,000 acres divided amongst 4,000 winemakers.
We went into the vineyards at Chevalier Montrachet, a Grand Cru vineyard to see the vines, pruning methods and the soils. We headed for our first tasting in Meursault at the Maison Molliard winery. By Burgundy standards it’s a large operation, as they store and bottle for a number of growers. It is a combination of a new facility with very old cellars. Interesting how technology spreads, instead of hand sorting the grapes they use optical scanners and find it both more accurate and less costly. Here we tasted 10 different wines starting with a Villages, then on to a Premier Cru and finally some Grand Cru’s. The vintages ranged from 2010 to a 2016; all were good and the differences in the quality and vintages was noticeable. Since these wines, including the Chardonnay, are expected to age, your skills as a taster are challenged to project the impact of aging. Jeremy helps to educate us and his descriptions are most helpful.
We had a lovely lunch in the country, followed by a drive through the vineyards and the many small villages dotting the countryside. The scene is very pastoral, most villages have amazingly narrow streets (so glad we are not driving!) houses spanning the centuries in age, a church, and maybe a post office or bakery. The schools are elementary level, with students going to neighboring larger towns for middle and high school. The walls and some houses date back to the 14th century, with more houses built in the 17th century or later, and of course some renovated, but nothing looks new. There are occasional chateau type manor houses between villages. The forest is on top of the hills, making a tree lined horizon. We learned about the vineyards on the hillside and those on the flatter slopes near the valley floor. Some winemaking is carried out in the outbuildings of the house - like a garage would be in US, while some grapes are transferred to larger facilities nearby to be processed.
We drove through the vineyards back to Beaune to visit Pierre Mayful, a winemaker who buys grapes for several vineyards and makes his own wine. His facility is so unassuming one would not know it exists. The entrance is on a street in the center of Beaune and looks just like nearby houses; just a house number, no sign at all. Once inside the door, Pierre welcomed us into a small living room and then down the stairs to his cellar. What a surprise! The house is very old and cellar is not nearly as old as Pierre is relative early in this stage of his wine journey. Jeremy knows Pierre well; that is how we gained access to this special cellar and its fine wines. We enjoyed several white wines and several red wines from various vintages and levels. Pierre was very busy, as the harvest has just concluded. He joined us during the tasting, apologizing for his purple stained hands from winemaking.
We went back to our hotel to ponder all the magnificent wines we tasted today, and to rest a bit before our special dinner at Clos du Cedre. After a full French country lunch, which is more like dinner for us at home, and plenty of wine, we will try to do justice to a nice four course dining experience. The evening is lovely; we walked through the old streets of town and through a park along the old city ramparts to the mansion that is now a hotel and restaurant. The dinner was delicious and the service outstanding as well. Full, satisfied and tired, we walked back to our hotel for a much needed night’s sleep.
Day two of tasting is off to good start with a light breakfast, and then a drive to the Cote d’ Nuites region. The weather is beautiful and as we head north the terroir becomes clear, the area is slightly cooler and the trees on the hillside are showing a bit more fall color than yesterday. We drive to the historic area known as the Vosne-Romanee. People have been known to spend several thousand Euro for a single bottle! As you can imagine a tasting at the famous Romanee Conti was not part of our experience. We did, however, have a lovely tasting at Le grande Cave de Vougeot in a private tasting room after a tour of the cellars that date from1631 with Julien Noel. Again we tasted 8 different wines and all were different and good. Just to make things a bit more confusing even though we are the Cot du Nuites, many of the Houses also have vineyards in the Cote de Beaune. After the tasting we drove through more of the famous vineyards and Jeremy explained the origins of the AOC (Appellation Origin Control) which dates from the 1930’s as a way to protect the various growers from counterfeiters. It has worked very well for the wineries as well as other producers such as cheeses. We are then off to an incredible lunch at Rotisserie du Chambertin.
We finish the day of tasting at the Chateau de Marsannay, after a tour of the cellars and their facility we adjourn to a private tasting room looking out to their vineyards. At this point I am losing track of the various wines Jeremy had talked our host into serving. But I can remember how good they all were. After this tasting we needed to decide what wines we were going to ship home. That was difficult and try as we may, we could not limit ourselves to less than 18 bottles. With a 20% discount for avoiding the VAT (which reduced the shipping cost substantially), we realized our trip and tasting were coming to an end.
On the bright side we were looking forward to meeting our friends, Ken and Marette in Beaune for dinner that night, so with happy memories of a great wine tasting experience, we were off to return to Beaune.
Brad
2018-09-25
So marvelous! Bring me home a few cases!
Ken
2018-09-25
We followed you through Côte de Nuits today and drove thought those magical little towns. We had a wonderful time with you in Bueane.