Articles, Europe

Savoring the Burgundy Wine Country of France

by Lee Foster

As an American traveler to the great vineyards of Burgundy, I was struck first by their compactness. So many famous names were such proximate neighbors. Entering the area from Paris via the autoroute, my first glimpse of the famous Cote-d’Or hills, facing south to pick up their optimal sun, recalled the terrain of California’s Napa Valley, with its similarly manageable size. The red limestone soil of Burgundy picked up the red tiles on the farmhouses and found a complement in the summer green of the grape fields. By October the grape leaves turn to the bright gold color that names the region.

I hoped to find an old farmhouse as a lodging and then to savor the pleasures of Burgundy at a leisurely pace from this rural setting. Through the good offices of Beaune Tourism, I soon found myself happily ensconced at Levernois, a village two miles from Beaune, in the Hotel du Parc, a converted 18th-century farmhouse. My little stone chamber came complete with a wheat field alongside, an all too dependable rooster crowing at dawn, and farmers passing in horse-drawn carts. The most precious commodity of the country, peace and quiet, was served up amply.

BEAUNE FOR WINE AND FOOD

That evening I dined in Beaune, a city that takes seriously both its wine and cuisine, which is one reason why the stores close for an extended lunch hour from noon to 2 p.m. I ate at Maxime’s, sitting that balmy night in the open air under the sycamore trees in the Place Madeleine. I debated the separate pleasures of my cold salmon in butter sauce, fish in a pastry topped with mushroom sauce, and ham in sour cream sauce, against the delights of another diner’s ham with garlic and other herbs, snails in butter and garlic, then chicken in wine sauce. The debate proceeded mainly in superlatives, but we joined forces unequivocably on the elaborate cheese plate, favoring the local goat cheese, epoisse Chambertin. I ate another particularly memorable dinner south of Beaune in the village of Auxey-Duresses, at the restaurant La Cremaillere, where the tender lamb was memorable.

The countryside that bears witness to this happy marriage between the Pinot Noir or Chardonnay grapes and the red limestone soil was the object of my excursion the following morning. Driving south from Beaune, I realized that people who talk of the gravelly soil of Burgundy refer to rocks rather than small stones. Flat rocks dug from fields prepared for planting became the fence walls, with the word clos, as in Clos de Vougeot, referring to the stone enclosure of the vineyards.

I visited that day the venerable Chateau de Pommard, observing the neatly manicured vineyards and walnut trees, all enclosed typically with stone. I descended through buff-colored buildings to the cellars, several levels of caves dug in the soft limestone soil. Pommard boasts the largest Burgundy premium wine production under a single proprietor. One ancient cask was held together by strands of willow. Individually carved spigots, resembling gargoyles, adorn the many large casks that hold Pommard Pinot Noir for two years before bottling. After seeing the thousands upon thousands of bottles tightly packed on their sides against the stone walls, I tasted Pommard, a fine wine and difficult to locate in wineshops.

Returning to Beaune, I hoped to visit one of the wineries in the city. Several companies offer intimate tours and ample tasting. Wine in Beaune ages in underground caves, many of which were part of the city’s fortification in the 15th century. I decided to tour the Calvet Company, which has the most elaborate of these caves. Carefully guided by a lifelong Calvet employee, I made my way through about 500 feet of underground rooms, including a military tower from the town’s original wall. In these caverns Calvet has some 1,200,000 bottles of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Beaujolais wines. Their Pinot Noir ages here in bottles after the first two years in wood. My guide led me past racks of mold-covered bottles to the Calvet room of historic vintages, which includes some wines from as far back as 1860. I saw one room where workers patiently removed the sediment from each bottle with a small vacuum pump.

After winding my way from level to level by climbing quaint wrought-iron stairs, the Calvet guide led me through a door in the seven-foot-thick wall of the original fortifications. I tasted Calvet’s Burgundy, and when I expressed my pleasure, he said, “We have the soil and the climate. How could we miss?”

DRIVING THROUGH BURGUNDY

The next day I drove south and west, following the hillside, passing many postcard villages, such as Mersault and Santenay. Though open sky and clouds traded the sun back and forth for the afternoon, I decided on a picnic and found a small dirt road amidst the fields. There I regaled myself with wine, tasty French bread, several local pâtés from the fine charcuteries of Beaune, one of the excellent local cheeses (epoisse Montrachet), and the tasty white-meat peaches available in Europe. Wild blackberries grew around me in such profusion along the stone walls that I picked my dessert before I succumbed to a short nap on the sunny slopes. On similar outings I ripened and mellowed for the rest of my trip.

I drove another few miles south that day, passing additional villages and clearly marked wine regions, as the mysteries of Burgundy wine labels diminished with each new vista. Words that had been only sonorous and unctious associations with the red nectar, such as Nolay and Saint Aubin, suddenly sprang to life before me, filling me with a geographic knowledge that can enhance the pleasures of wine drinking.

I doubt that I’ll ever fully comprehend the intricacies of reading Burgundy wine labels, an obscure and burdensome art. Following a rough rule of palate, the vineyard only on the label (with mis en bouteille au domaine), then the village-vineyard names sharing the label, and then the village name only on the label give some indication of declining selectivity, though the distinctions proceed among attractive choices. The situation further mystifies because many vineyards are slightly larger than handkerchiefs. Wine processors and bottlers play a dominant role in blending and labeling.

Prices for Burgundy’s better wines, even if one knocks on the door of the winery, are sufficiently high that many ardent admirers must view the bottles from afar, through a glass darkly, as if the wine were a museum piece. The entire Cote-d’Or planting occupies a small strip of hillside terrain 30 miles long and a half mile wide. With a meager 15,000 acres under controlled appellation, the output of the best Burgundy will always be scarce and expensive. All of Burgundy produces only a third of the output of Bordeaux; 15 percent of that third is the notable Cote-d’Or wine, about 5 million gallons of red and white wine. The total white wine output increases 1.2 million gallons if the better Chablis whites are included in a geographic definition of the region.

Burgundy usually conjures up impressions of a heavy red wine. To a designer of clothes “Burgundy” evokes a swatch of cloth with a deep reddish purple color. But Burgundies are not necessarily red, and they are not always heavy wines either. Their “heaviness” has been variously appreciated as a virtue and a limitation, with the Swiss and the Belgians ranking as the most enthusiastic importers.

This visit to Beaune was particularly instructive to me because “Burgundy” on a California wine label safely indicates only that the contents are red and presumably vinous. When Shakespeare in King Lear used the phrase “waterish Burgundy,” what exactly did he mean? Was this an unhappy instance of his usually gifted eclectic talents for picking up images and language? Was he merely referring to a practice of using wine and water at table? Or had he been victimized by efforts of wine vendors to “stretch” with water the scarce product, a regrettable practice that has persisted occasionally in this century. The modern Burgundy perpetrators of these gustatory sins have had the decency, at least, to “stretch” the best Burgundy with less distinguished Burgundy rather than water.

VILLAGES SOUTH OF BEAUNE

Among the villages south of Beaune, Nolay was particularly inviting, with its cafe terrace looking across at a 15th-century church spire, a pigeon-spattered statue of the 19th-century painter Corot, several other houses with a medieval cast, their wooden beams embedded with stucco in a triangular fashion, and, most noteworthy of all, a covered marketplace, the halles dating from the 15th century.

One day I drove north to Clos de Vougeot, the famous vineyard held by the Abbey of Citeaux until the French Revolution. Situated in the heart of its 124 acres of vines is the monastic structure, dating from the 12th century. A tour includes a visit to the room where the famous Chevaliers de Tastevin, bon vivants who have owned Vougeot since 1944, gather with honored guests for sybaritic encounters. Travelers are asked to see a movie about the Chevaliers that is too long, self-congratulatory, and steeped in more mock religious seriousness for my taste, but the buildings themselves, with large fireplaces, wells, and old wine press, a 20th-century sculpture of the Grape Pickers by Bouchard, and a recent tapestry by Michel Tourliere, suggesting the Cote-d’Or as seen from the air, make the visit memorable.

A Vougeot guide then invited me to taste the Morin wine from Vougeot, which I greatly enjoyed. To an American it seems remarkable that 124 acres of vineyards could be split among 80 proprietors, many with their own labels. I imagine that a careful division of vines must be the subject of litigious exactitude when making out a will. Historical figures, such as Napolean, have contributed to the prominence of vineyards in this area by cultivating a decided preference for selected wines. Napolean favored Chambertin among all others.

Back in Beaune I wanted to make two more visits before the end of my trip. First, I saw the famous Hotel-Dieu, the hospital founded in the 15th century and now endowed with 130 acres of vineyards whose grapes are auctioned annually on the third Sunday in October. The hospital continues to thrive as an old folks home for 140 people in one wing, but the main interest for travelers is the pure and severe medieval architecture, with intricate woodwork and colorful roof tiles. The hospital was known for its Herculean service in time of plague. As many as 500 patients rested here at one time, sleeping two to a bed to keep warm. Many human dramas involving the founders were discussed by our able guide. One amusing story concerned the word seule or “only” that founder Nicolas Rolin entwined in the coat of arms of the hospital to assure his wife and cofounder, Guigone de Salins, that she was his only love. Some thought that assurances were necessary because Rolin was said to have fathered 30 children by other women.

The hospital has a considerable art collection, with the Last Judgment by Roger van der Weyden as the premier piece.

Beaune also houses a wine museum, my last stop, in the former residence of the Ducs de Bourgogne. Artifacts illustrate the history of wine generally and Burgundy in particular. Many curiosities delight the browser, including Greek amphorae, medieval wine presses, and a collection of wine glasses from antiquity to the present. The wine glasses suggest that our insistence on gathering the bouquet in a fluted glass began in the 20th century. A lyrical modern tapestry by Michel Tourliere evokes the multiple and beneficial roles of wine in mythology and everyday life.

As a final salute before leaving Beaune, I opened a white wine, an Aligote Pouligny-Montrachet under the name of Galliot. The wine’s freshness, delicate tartness, and careful balance was my last satisfying taste of this lovely Cote-d’Or and its 2,000 years of grape culture.

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BURGUNDY REGION OF FRANCE: IF YOU GO

For further information, contact the French Government Tourist Office, 444 Madison Ave., 16th Floor, New York, NY 10022-6903; 212/838-7800; www.francetourism.com.

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Copyright © 2012 Lee Foster, Foster Travel Publishing. All rights reserved.

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