Le vin est bon à Beaune

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!