Beaune, Bourgogne - the Burgundy Region

After searching I guess I'm the first LTH'er to post about Burgundy. Surprising, well here you go Geo...

Burgundies have always been our favorite wines, so thought it was high time we went to the belly of the beast. We stayed in Beaune, which is dead center of the Cote d'Or. Cotes de Nuits and the reds just to the north, and Cotes de Beaune and the whites just to the south. Tres jolie!


We stayed at La Terre d'Or, a B&B just outside of Beaune, about a 20 minute walk to the center of town. Top rated on tripadvisor, and the reviews were accurate. The owners were fantastic, very amiable and of great assistance. The patriarch is Jean-Louis, and we hired him as driver and guide. Was nice to have a DD, I certainly wasn't going to be spitting out any burgundies at the tastings! Excellent guide, he's lived here his entire life and was extremely enthusiastic about sharing his intimate knowledge of the culture and wines of the region.

Geo mentioned the modest farmers of the region. Well, these modest farmers happen to own some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Even though the plots have been subdivided to fractions amongst heirs, there's still plenty of money to go around for everyone. For example, every home in the region is surrounded by these tall privacy walls. Jean-Louis gave us a peak behind the gates of a couple families he knows, and behind the gates sits a big S Class Benz or BMW. The tall walls have been built and maintained through the ages to keep the dreaded tax man from spying and guessing at unreported income, aha!


Whenever you read about French wines, you always hear about the terroir, the terroir, the terroir. You can't really get it until you experience it. The entire region sits under a thick layer of limestone (le chalcer), and they've been quarrying and excavating it for generations. Every house is built of limestone, and sits on a cellar with limestone walls. Here's the grotto that sits beneath our hotel. You can't tell from the picture, but the ceiling of the grotto is one continuous slab of limestone. There's no artificial supports, this huge expanse of ceiling is held up just by the stength of the stone.


And even though the vignerons have been working these fields for ages, the stone still fractures and works its way up to the surface through the clay (argile) and soil. It's a continual labor to remove the stone shards from the fields and pile them on the murs (walls) that separate each individual clos (or enclosed plat, hence enclosure).


Organic (biologique) farming is making inroads in the area. Here's a couple adjacent plats, you can guess which farmer is using Roundup and which isn't:



And on to the wine. The most interesting winery we visited was Chateau de Chassagne-Montrachet on the Cotes de Beaune. Very educational tour, you take a walk on their grounds and they point out exactly how the Burgundy wines are classified based on what part of the hill the grapes are grown on. For example, I always thought a Premier Cru was just really good grapes, but non! Only grapes grown on a specific slope on the hillside (the gentle curve where it transitions from plain to slope, to be exact) can be granted the holy Premier Cru appellation. Doesn't matter how fantastic a job the vigneron does with growing his grapes on the level plain, it will always be a Village or Vin de Table. And the Grand Cru's, Mon Dieu! There's only seven sacred plots of earth in all of Bourgogne that can be granted with that exalted title. All comes back to the terroir, the slope determines the exact soil conditions that can grow the finest grapes. Silk purses and sows ears and so on. But of course the winemaker has his input on the finished product, regardless the raw material:



The morning tastings worked up an appetite, and Jean-Louis dropped us off at Le Cellier Volnaysien in Volnay in the Cotes de Beaune for our dejeuner:


And yes of course, we would like a nice white Premier Cru s'il vous plait to go with that lovely chicken with cream sauce served with potatoes pan fried to a golden crisp in clarified butter - I do believe they've had some practice pairing their food with the region's wines. This lunch was delicious, I'd go back in a heartbeat:



Dinner that night was in Beaune, and we had our favorite meal of the whole vacation at Le Gourmandin. Just what you'd want in a village restaurant, intimate and cozy, surrounded by limestone walls and dark oak trim. We both ordered Le Menu de Bourgognon, which had all the classics. Jambon de Persille (ham in aspic with parsley), Escargots, Boeuf Bourgognon, a magnificent runny, stinky Epoisses for the cheese course, and a cassis sorbet for final course and palate cleanser. They plop an ancient wine list as heavy as a phone book on the table, found this lovely 2005 Premier Cru on there for just 80 Euros, magic in a bottle. That bouef bourgognon was to die for, I wanted to pick up the little cauldron and slurp up all the sauce it was so tasty:





Another noteworthy meal was at Restaurant Le Conty in Beaune. Last meal in Bourgogne, we were seated downstairs in the caveau surrounded by wine, just spilling out of every nook of the restaurant. Decided what the hell when in Rome, let's get a Grand Cru:



More escargots, more asparagus, more boeuf bourgognon, more fromage... I love this stuff, just wonderful food:




Really enjoyed our stay here, will definitely return. But time to go, and on to Lyon!

We are going to Dijon/Burgundy, Lyon and then Paris in August. I have figured out Dijon/Burgundy and a little of where we will dine in Paris but can't wait to see your Lyon installment for some ideas! Thanks, these posts are beautiful!

And the Grand Cru's, Mon Dieu! There's only seven sacred plots of earth in all of Bourgogne that can be granted with that exalted title.

IIRC, there are 32 Grand Cru vineyards in Burgundy. Maybe the seven you are speaking of are all in one village?

Other than that little bit of housekeeping, a wonderful report, glad you had a great time.

mhill95149 wrote:

And the Grand Cru's, Mon Dieu! There's only seven sacred plots of earth in all of Bourgogne that can be granted with that exalted title.

IIRC, there are 32 Grand Cru vineyards in Burgundy. Maybe the seven you are speaking of are all in one village?

Other than that little bit of housekeeping, a wonderful report, glad you had a great time.

Pardon Monsieur - I meant villages, not plats. And there's 9 or so. Anyway, the point is that it's grown on rare earth.

It's actually quite the branding scheme they've got going. i preferred my 05 premier cru to the 05 grand cru. And we had a 2010 Givry Village white Burgundy in Lyon ( to follow) that I thought that was as enjoyable, if not more so, than the 09 we had at lunch in Volnay. I wish I had the luxury to be drinking my way through all of them and ranking my own preferences.

Which is kind of how the locals treat the wine themselves. In the above picture in the grotto you'll see a curly-haired guy with his back to the picture. That's Vincent, son of the owner of our hotel. The family stored their wine in the grotto, and it seemed to be hundreds of bottles scattered at random all over the place. When asked what sort of inventory scheme they used he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I do not know, we drink it so fast that no one has time to keep track". Must be nice! They hardly have a reverential attitude toward the wine. Not to say they don't appreciate it but they're not genuflecting every time they uncork a bottle.

Fast Eddie wrote:mhill95149 wrote:
Quote:
And the Grand Cru's, Mon Dieu! There's only seven sacred plots of earth in all of Bourgogne that can be granted with that exalted title.


IIRC, there are 32 Grand Cru vineyards in Burgundy. Maybe the seven you are speaking of are all in one village?

Other than that little bit of housekeeping, a wonderful report, glad you had a great time.


Pardon Monsieur - I meant villages, not plats. And there's 9 or so. Anyway, the point is that it's grown on rare earth.

I'm still not exactly sure what you might mean, as there are twelve villages from which Grand Cru wine can be produced.

Between Puligny and Chassagne, I count seven such grand cru vineyards in Montrachet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Burgundy_Grand_Crus.

ETA: Beautiful pics/thread, btw. Very much enjoying the vicarious journey!

This thread made me remember one of the odder things I saw while in a bookstore in Beaune: a series of manga, translated from Japanese into French, and all about wine. "Les Gouttes de Dieu" is the series title, and evidently the books in the series are both instructional when it comes to French wine and hugely popular in Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan. These books are actually credited with having increased sales of French wines in parts of Asia! I haven't read them, but perhaps I should give them a try. I might learn something.

Beautiful pics and narrative of a place high on my 'to visit' list! Thanks for posting

Was in the general area until yesterday and plan to post more, soon, specifically about tacos Lyonnais. I heard the weather was rough earlier in the month; we had mostly sun and 70s, pretty much perfect for eating cheese and drinking wine outdoors.

I have very fond memories of Beaune (specifically the Hospice) from the 70s, but haven't been back since then. I have a repro of the Last Judgment from the Hospice hanging over my bed; I spent an intense afternoon with it years ago, and then had one of the best meals of my life in an unprepossessing hole-in-wall place, just saucy veal, green beans, bread, wine and cheese. I'll never forget it.

The spirit of the region was, for me, summed up in this little figure from the cathedral at Ambierle (outside Roanne, more or less between Lyon and Beaune).



Where other cathedrals in other regions might have scary gargoyles, there's this funny little jester figure, elfish, kind of happy, light-hearted, expressing the joie de vivre that I've always sensed in this part of France. People seem happy and full of life here, and I love watching them eat.

Appreciate the posting, Fast Eddie.

Diane wrote:

Fast Eddie wrote:

JeffB wrote:David, got it. I don't disagree, though Spain was also formerly Roman and a mish mosh of peoples....

One of the more enchanting things we saw in Burgundy was an old Roman horse watering station up in the hills. Our modern roads usually run through valleys for ease of construction, but their roads ran along the hill crests. Costlier to build buy very sensible - much less likely to get bogged down in the mud. This is a still functional water fountain that the Romans built as a horse watering trough, remarkable engineers. The 4 stellae at the top of fountain are Roman household dieties:

Fast Eddie-where is this horse watering station located? I would love to see it. We're going to Beaune/Dijon, Lyon and Paris in August. Your posts and this thread about Lyon are making me very excited for our trip.

The fountain is the Fontaine de Chaigne (alternate spelling is Chene, which is the French word for oak). Our host took us there, it's definitely off the beaten path - I doubt I could've found it on my own unless someone told me exactly how to get there. I don't recall much if any signage, it's just a turn off from a paved road near the top of a ridge line and then a quarter mile down a dirt road that dead ends at the fountain. It's right outside the village of Orches, here's a good map.

You'll notice the field of yellow/gold in the background of the photo above. Our guide told us these are fields of colza. He couldn't think of the English word for it, and I couldn't guess at the cognate and google translate on my mobile wasn't any help.

Subsequent research reveals that colza=rapeseed, from which rapeseed oil (aka canola oil) is extracted. You'll see a lot of these fields in Burgundy, it's one of the reasons it's called the Cote d'Or. The colza in the spring and summer, and then the vines turning gold in the fall. But why the hell plant rapeseed in Burgundy? The ROI is quite a bit higher on Burgundy grapes than canola oil on such pricy real estate.

Although grape vines are tough and long lived, they aren't immortal. He pointed out some vines that were quite mossy - that's an indicator that they're reaching the end of their productive life (maybe 80 years max), leading to the painful decision of when to tear them out and start all over again. Further research says that the colza is a green manure that they use to replenish the fallow plots. It has a very deep taproot that helps break up the heavy clay, plus it acts as a natural pesticide that eliminates certain harmful nematodes. For families who've owned the land for generations, and plan to leave a legacy lasting further generations, sometimes you have to take the long view and foregoe short term profits for long term gain. After 80 years of hard work, that soil has earned a rest non?


Someone more versed in viticulture can probably fill us in on how old this practice is, but I suspect that it started well before the age of chemical pesticides and herbicides. I'm sure the plants between the rows of grapevines in the organic plat upthread weren't selected by chance either.

Our favorite winery when we went to Napa & Sonoma last fall was Littorai, which produces some very nice pinot noirs. The proprietor Ted Lemon is an American who learned his craft in Burgundy. His vineyards are 100% organic, and one of the more interesting (and fragrant) parts of their tour was their herb drying shed. They grow specific herbs to counter specific fungi and pests, and instead of dousing everything with chemicals they dry these herbs and then grind them into a dust and apply where needed. They also interplant the vines with specific herbs and flowers. You'll often see rose bushes at the foot of a row of vines, they're placed there to attract specific pests to keep them off of the grapes.


Enjoy your trip Diane, can't wait to see your pictures! I'd love to see how everything looks in the summer, especially when the grapes start plumping up.

Heading to the Burgundy region in a month.

So far, the only firm restaurant reservation & lodging we have is at Le Relais Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu.

There is supposed to be a good market in Saulieu as well.

I'm insane for both Burgundy wine, and Burgundian cuisine. Bernard Loiseau, his desire to pierce the essence of the foodstuffs he cooked, the tragedy of his inner torment, all while fighting hard until he couldn't, are all very close to my heart. All the best with your trip and I hope you'll have a chance to post your experiences once you've come back.

Patrick Berton's Au Relais Bernard Loiseau : La passion en heritage, 60 recettes trois-etoiles as well as Dominique's memoir on her husband and life with him, are among the Loiseau and Loiseau-legacy books in my Amazon cart. Inspired me to move them to the top of the pile.

Moulardalot wrote:All the best with your trip and I hope you'll have a chance to post your experiences once you've come back.

thanks, will do, appreciate the book ideas

Fast Eddie wrote:We stayed at La Terre d'Or, a B&B just outside of Beaune...

wow, that is the most expensive B&B I've come across.

I'm looking into wine tours, came across these two companies.
Wine Me Up: http://winemeup.travel/en/110-our-tours-in-burgundy
Bourgogne Gold Tour: http://www.bourgogne-gold-tour.com/wp-c ... r-2015.pdf
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Willie,

I haven't dined in Burgundy for some time, but here is a list of recommendations from a frequent visitor that I am "borrowing" from a wine board I visit:

Caves Madeleine
Ma Cuisine
Tontons
La Cabotte
Bissoh
Le Terroir
Aupres de Clocher
Lameloise
The bistro at Levernois
Le Chevreuil
Chez Guy

The only one of these restaurants that I have been to is Lameloise, and the last time I was the was for dinner on 9/11/2001. Needless to say, the meal was a bit subdued. For what it's worth, Lameloise, like Loiseau also has three Michelin stars and is priced accordingly. That being said, many of the fine dining restaurants do offer (more) affordable lunch options.

With regard to a wine tour, I might recommend a drive along the Route des Grands Crus. However, this might largely depend on your wine fluency. If you are relatively new to burgundy, an organized tour might make sense. The Route des Grands Crus will take you through many of the greatest vineyards in the area. The burgundians are known for their hospitality. I would think you could schedule some winery visits in advance using the internet. Unlike many wine producing areas, there are very few buildings that are actually located near the best sites and most growers have tasting rooms elsewhere.

Very jealous of your trip. It's a very beautiful area.

Unfortunately, it's become a tragic time to visit Burgogne. Frosts--and indeed, nearby snow--have most certainly imperiled the '16 vintage, although the extent of damage is as yet unknown. I've talked with friends in the business there and they are still in shock; most believe that it will turn out to be a disaster.

http://www.decanter.com/wine-news/burgundy-frost-fears-french-vineyards-300131/

Geo

deesher wrote:Very jealous of your trip. It's a very beautiful area.

I got lucky & won a trip for two to this year's Paris French Open Tennis (Roland Garros). Seeing as the trip came with RT airfare, I asked if I could extend the trip at my own cost, which they allowed. Been to Paris, Normandy, French Riviera/Monaco but never anywhere else in France. Usually travel in the cheap off season (winter), so Mrs Willie is VERY excited to go when the days will be long, sunny and likely warm (at least warmer than winter).

Thanks for the suggestions.

Michelin does list a number of restaurants in the area:
http://www.viamichelin.com/web/Restaura ... 16Z3lOdz09
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We have been to Burgundy about 6 times in the last few years. It's such a understated relaxing area. We usually stay at the Chateau Gilly in Gilly. It's a beautiful restored home of the cistern monks.

http://www.grandesetapes.com/en/castle-hotel-gilly-burgundy?gclid=CjwKEAjw0pa5BRCLmoKIx_HTh1wSJABk5F_4XyBY2Y7P5_kgiP8eZdcQuI2u0Ljgq7O0Zx3DsDFcFhoCozjw_wcB

We have gotten to know Vincent and Thierry Beaumont from Domaine Beaumont in Morey Saint Denis. The first time we visited their Domaine was with Trek Travel and we have been back many times. Small but delicious wines.

http://www.domaine-des-beaumont.com

Restaurants we love are La Chambolle in Chambolle, Restaurant Simon in Fixin and Le Millesime in Chambolle. All are very small and very good.

In Beaune, try to stop by the antique poster gallery owned by Michel and Véronique - Galerie Garglia. Great selection of posters.
It's also fun to rent bicycles and ride along the Rue de Grande
Crus.

Diane wrote:We have been to Burgundy about 6 times in the last few years...

Hi Dianne, Have you shipped back any wine? If so, is there a reputable wine merchant you would recommend?

Sweet Willie wrote:

Diane wrote:We have been to Burgundy about 6 times in the last few years...

Hi Dianne, Have you shipped back any wine? If so, is there a reputable wine merchant you would recommend?

When we have purchased wine from Domaine Beaumont, they use and recommend Côte d'or Imports.

http://www.cotedorpdx.com

They are good, not cheap but we've never had an issue with breakage or any other shipping problems.

We also had good luck buying directly from Bruno Claire and I think they use Côte d'Or also.

Bonjour Monsieur - years later my wife still raves about the chicken she had at Le Cellier Volnaysien in Volnay, me too! I'd say my favorite meals in Burgundy were a tie between that and Le Gourmandin in Beaune. Both places have been around a long time, I doubt the quality has slackened any in the past few years. If you're looking for a memorable meal, I can still give a blow by blow of each course we had at Le Gourmandin, I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Just back from a trip through Burgundy with friends. It's truly the off season, so our dining choices were more limited than they would have been at other times of year. Still, we had a terrific wine tour in Dijon with Wine & Voyages, including two vineyard visits and tastings. Our friends had looked into a food tour for the area, but we thought the price was too high. I am convinced that you can eat and drink very well in Burgundy without breaking the bank, so that's what we did.

We chose to make our own visit to Domaine Guyot-- where we were greeted as if we were friends stopping by for a chat and a few glasses. The owner and winemaker was there, along with his son, and just talked to us about their wines. When it came to the millésimes, he explained how the weather had meant for them and for their fellow winemakers each year of the past 5 or 6. It turns out that 2017 was terrible weather for winemakers all over Europe, but not for Burgundy. Get ready to restock, I say.

It's easy to find Michelin-starred restaurants in Burgundy, but we also wanted to have some more modest meals. We did very well on our drive up from Lyon with a stop at L'Escale in Remigny. It's a friendly place, with a warm, relaxed atmosphere and perfectly made Burgundian food. Very good wine list. The terrine de campagne was house-made (as was everything there) and when we gasped in astonishment at the portion sizes, our server said, "Bienvenue en Bourgogne!" (Welcome to Burgundy!).

In Beaune, we visited the Hospices on a Sunday, so we were very lucky to be able to eat at La Ciboulette. It felt very much like a family-run place, with excellent quality of ingredients, classic preparation, and lots of attentive service (when we all decided on a crémant for an apéritif, the server said, "I'll just bring you a bottle" which turned out to cost something like 4,50 E per person). And, seeing that I had not finished just one last morsel of my cheese course, the woman who seemed to be in charge came over to wag a finger at me in mock reprimand. "That's Epoisse that has been bathed in Marc de Bourgogne! You have to finish it!" There was no danger that I was going to let any cheese go to waste, but I appreciated her concern. She came back to check on me and it was for the sake of her tender feelings that I cleaned my plate and ordered dessert.

Both L'Escale and La Ciboulette offer fixed-price menus under 30 Euros (not including wine).

Domaine Olivier Guyot
39, rue de Mazy
21160 MARSANNAY-LA-COTE

Auberge L'Escale
2 route de Chassey le Camp
71150 REMIGNY

La Ciboulette
69 rue de la Lorraine
21200 BEAUNE

MariaTheresa2 wrote:"That's Epoisse that has been bathed in Marc de Bourgogne! You have to finish it!"

Given that every epoisses I've had smells like my kids' used gym socks I find it surprising that it was bathed at all.

And for anyone planning a trip to Beaune, we stayed here last time - loads of charm and a great little restaurant in the lobby.

https://www.hotelabbayedemaizieres.com/en/

I think it's more of a sponge bath than a cleansing shower Still, my nose must be toughened by exposure, because I think of Époisses as relatively mild in aroma.

That reminds me -- I've wondered something about other diners here in France. Just how much cheese do people manage to eat when the cheese course comes in the form of a cheese cart with a dozen or more varieties?

We ate at Les Caudalies in Arbois (in the Jura region), had a fantastic, multiple-course meal, and then the cheese cart came out. It should have been pulled by a small pony, there was so much cheese. The server presented the cheeses and then gave me a generous slice of each one I pointed to, and I wondered if at some point he would tell me if I'd reached my limit, or if I was expected to restrain my gluttony myself. In the end, I stopped after 4 cheeses, I think. Or maybe it was 5. It was quite a lot of cheese, anyway, after everything else. Do other people just take a few dainty slices? Do they try to taste as much as possible? Side note: I've now observed that many higher-end restaurants offer a cheese course for 15 Euros, which does suggest a substantial quantity. Am I wrong about that?

What do other people do? And, when it's just an ordinary restaurant with a choice of dessert or cheese, do you ever order the fromage blanc? It makes me think of the side serving of cottage cheese at an old-style dinner club. Hmm. Maybe I am prejudiced in favor of more odiferous cheeses. Could be.

Les Caudalies
20 ave. Pasteur
39600 ARBOIS

spinynorman99 wrote:And for anyone planning a trip to Beaune, we stayed here last time - loads of charm and a great little restaurant in the lobby.
https://www.hotelabbayedemaizieres.com/en/

I stayed there too. Beautiful place!

MariaTheresa2 wrote:I think it's more of a sponge bath than a cleansing shower Still, my nose must be toughened by exposure, because I think of Époisses as relatively mild in aroma.

When I had the cheese service at a meal in Beaune the man arrived with the cart with the cheeses nicely displayed on a board along with a wooden box. When I asked about the box the waiter said it's where they keep the epoisses so the "aroma" doesn't disturb some diners..