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| Maxime...the epitome of French stereotype |
When you think of France, what springs to mind? The
Eiffel Tour? Cheese? Moustached men in stripey tops? True, but I’m thinking more of
the bottled French stereotype. Wine.
I recently realised that I have
been living for far too long in the country of le bon vin to not have done some
serious wine tasting. When some Valenciennes friends suggested that we
drove down to the Bourgogne wine region (Burgundy in English) for the weekend I
of course had to seize the opportunity.
After a good 4 hour journey we had our lunchtime pit-stop in Dijon, capital of the Bourgogne region. Dijon certainly offers more to tourists than a decent pot of mustard, and it boasts some pretty unique architecture.
The brightly patterned roofs on many of the old buildings are typical to the Bourgogne region, and the lucky stone owls which can be found on the exterior walls of the Église Notre Dame, are worn down from many years of locals and tourists rubbing them for good luck.
Taking in Dijon
at our own pace, we meandered around the streets, picking up cheese, mustard
and ham (6 euro for 4 slices from the market….!) for our picnic. I definitely
went a bit over board with the mustard however, resulting in teary eyes, but a
very tasty sandwich.
We took the scenic route for the
final leg of our journey, passing along the ‘Route des Grands Crus’, (Road
of the Great Vineyards). Every village along the way was focused around wine:
growing, tasting, and selling. Before even reaching our gîte we decided to stop
at Nuits-Saint-Georges for our first dégustation
de vin (wine tasting session).
Dégustation #1:
Unfortunately, this was not too
inspiring. The woman who led the tasting was clearly still in training and
couldn’t really answer any of our questions. Although this was not her fault, Hannah
reckoned that the boss took one look at us, saw a group of young people who weren’t
likely to be buying cases of their good stuff and palmed us off with the
trainee. It’s a shame, but I think Hannah hit the nail on the head there. Being
young is not always an advantage!We didn’t stick around long, but we did buy two bottles of wine on the way out (…when in Rome…) and we arrived at our gîte early evening in the town of Beaune. We received a warm welcome by the owner, Madame Ponard, who showed us around the spacious and well equipped gîte, which even had a stock of local wines for sale in the kitchen.
Dinner turned out to be
incredibly late but incredibly tasty. Maxime had already been to Beaune so booked
us a table at his favourite restaurant, and it was clear to see why he was so
keen to return. The staff were lovely (even changing the wine when the taste
wasn’t what we were expecting!) and the food, once it got there, was of
excellent quality and beautifully presented. However, it was obvious that the
kitchen was having some issues that night, and after nearly 2 hours of waiting
for our food, the waiters apologised, and gave us plates of snails and other snacks
to keep us happy until the culinary storm had passed.
Coline and I had by chance
chosen snails for our main too. They were delicious and very different to the standard
snails in garlic butter we’d tasted before. They were served in three pots
in different sauces; chorizo, cheese, and gingerbread, which was surprisingly
my favourite. Afterwards we had a midnight walk around the town centre, which
despite the pouring rain was a very pleasant end to our first evening in
Beaune.
Sunday Supermarket Sweep
Although we are all accustomed to
the fact that most supermarkets are not open on a Sunday here, we were led to
believe that one of the three big supermarkets in Beaune would be. This was not the case, and we found ourselves at midday frantically driving around
desperately trying to find something open to buy food for lunch and dinner.
Luckily we managed to find one little corner shop open, with 10 minutes left
until it shut…cue Sunday Supermarket Sweep. This is still one of the most
annoying things about the French commercial culture, if you have no food in
your fridge come Sunday morning, you’re going to be hungry, or you’re going to
have to spend a lot more than you budgeted for in a restaurant.
Maxime had been saying from the beginning of the trip that we should definitely visit the old hospice in the centre of town. I was initially a bit confused as to why, thinking it may be a bit inappropriate to visit ill people as a tourist activity. I needn’t have worried, as he explained that it was now a museum, and the hospice was previously run by nuns and funded by the auctioning of the wine they grew in the local vineyards. It was really culturally interesting, and was another old, beautiful building with a multi-coloured patterned roof.
After getting soaked during our
picnic lunch we went up for a walk through another pretty village called
Santenay. With its cute little winding streets and bright flowers spilling over
the garden walls we didn’t see one ugly house. We found a great place for our second wine
tasting despite it being a Sunday. Wine and tourism trumps standard supermarket
needs it seems…
Dégustation #2
This was way better than our first. The man who looked after us was very willing
to answer our numerous questions, despite most of the group being wine-tasting novices.
I was keen to try a sparkling white wine, but didn’t want him to open up a bottle
just for us as we were his last tasting session of the day. He didn’t mind at
all, and he got straight to work with the bottle opener; he just seemed pleased
to have an excuse to drink the rest of it with his friends that evening. If the
wine seller is enjoying his own wine, that’s got to be a good sign, so to the cash
desk we went!
The wine tasting sensation was
not only just beginning…
Dégustation #3
Monsieur and Madame Ponard, the
gîte owners had their own wine cellar, (of course, what self-respecting
Burgundy home owner wouldn’t!?) and they
had invited us to take part in a dégustation on our final evening. We were led
inside by Monseiur Ponard, followed by his neighbours and his dog Benny. Madame
Ponard brought along the apéro snacks, and we all stood around an upturned
barrel testing all the wines we could have possibly imagined. He had hundreds
of bottles, dating from 2010 right back to 1989. The later it got, the merrier
we were felt, and talk turned to the Ponards’ life and ended with us singing
old drinking songs with them.
It was a lovely evening, and the next morning I
found 2 bottle of wine in my bag which I had been given for free. You’ve got to
love the hospitality of the French.
By the time we’d staggered back
across the yard to our gîte we were definitely feeling more than a little tipsy (see photo above...).
We cracked open the rest of the wine we’d acquired over the weekend, and as is
standard with us, commenced the mental dancing. At 1am we still hadn’t eaten dinner, so I thought it
would be an appropriate time to start cooking the roast we had originally
planned. At 2am, despite a
few burns and nearly adding milk to the roast vegetables, dinner was served. We
woke up the next morning to a very messy kitchen and very fuzzy heads.
The continuous flow of great
banter and excellent local wine, stunning architecture and beautiful stretches
of vineyards meant that we got the best out of the Bourgogne region despite the
near constant rain. I would recommend this region anyone who likes a glass of
good wine, and has a taste for the French countryside and culture.
Expect to leave with a car full of
wine and a hangover!
