From: grob@chorus.fr (Lori S. Grob)
Newsgroups: rec.travel
Subject: Trip to Bourgogne (travelogue LONG)
Keywords: bourgogne, france, wine, chateaux, short trips from Paris
Date: 21 Dec 92 10:32:55 GMT

There have been some postings recently asking for romantic
things to do in Paris and France for wedding anniversaries,
etc.  So I thought I would post a description of a 3 night
trip we took at the beginning of November. I guess
this trip started about 250km from Paris.

At the beginning of November we had houseguests. This
coincided with my husband's birthday (not a coincidence).
So we decided to go down to Bourgogne for a few days and
enjoy the colors of the leaves and find a couple of
fireplaces to sit in front of and sip some wine.

While we both enjoy winetasting, neither of us likes to spend
a whole trip doing only that. There is a lot to do and see
in Bourgogne even for people not interested in wine. What we
try and do is go to someplace in the morning taste/buy some wine.
Then we plan the rest of the day to include some chateaux, abbeys
wandering around old villages or walking around the fields.

We drove down from work on one afternoon.  We spent the first
night in Gevrey Chambertin.  Usually when we go down to
the Cote D'Or, we go south of Beaune. This was not the
first time we were around Cote de Nuit, but it was the first
time we had spent the night there.  We stayed at a hotel
called Le Grand Cru.  It was about 350FF a night for large
charming rooms with small balconies overlooking the vineyards
and the chateau. We got there and it was quite cold
and there were lot's of beautiful colors in the leaves.

We walked around the village a bit and even in the dark
it was lovely. When we got back to the hotel there was a
fire blazing away in the hearth. There were some other people
drinking wine in front of the fire. This seemed like a such
a good idea that we did the same thing. Not suprisingly
the hotel had a nice collection of reasonably priced wines
from the Cote de Nuit. We had a 1984 Gevrey Chambertin by
a small producer whom none of us knew but the hotel highly
recommended. We had a bottle of wine in front of the fire
and then went out to dinner.

Dinner was in a restuarant called Le Mill'esime that was
about a 5 minute walk away. Being the off season we
expected that the restaurant would not be very full. But
though they had some of the rooms upstairs not being used
we all ate in what must have originally been built as
a wine cellar, years ago. The place was full. Dinner was
delicious and the service was very friendly. During the meal
the owner came over and we began to talk about wine mentioning
some people we knew in the area. The next thing we knew we
were invited to go through the restaurants cellars.
The cellars were enormous and the wine collection was enough
to make us all gasp. And then he mentioned that these cellars
were just for the wine that was ready to drink. The cellars
for aging were back in the hills somewhere.

We said goodnight and we walked through the clear cold
night back to the hotel. At that point our visitors
were already speculating on the possibility of convincing
their companies in California that they really needed branch
offices in Gevrey Chambertin. 

The next morning we had an appointment in Beaune.
Beaune is a good place to for the weekend from 
Paris as it is very charming , quite different and
you can take a train or drive.

Beaune was the old capital city of the Dukes of Bourgogne
before Dijon.  It is a small old charming city with
still existing walls. The majority of the winding streets
in the center were built in the 15th century, although
parts go back to the 12th.  The central part is full
of ancient buildings and is really nice to wander around.
There are two or 3 main "sights" in Beaune. The Hospice
de Beaune, and a couple of lovely churches.The Hospice du
Beaune is a very interesting old structure It was built as a
hospital. The hospital functioned as a hospital up until
the 1970s although it was built in the 15th.  Some of the best
wines in Bourgogne are sold with a label from the Hospice de Beaune.
Some of the wineries received land during the revolution, that
had belonged to the Hospice before the church lost their land.
Some of these wineries have donated land back to the hospital.
They grow the vines and make the wine and the money goes to the
Hospice, which is a charitable organization.

Nowdays the Hospice is the beneficiary of the annual wine auction
in Bourgogne. Every year in November (on the 3rd sunday I think)
there is a wine auction in Beaune. This is the culmination of about 3 days
of ceremony. The auction proceeds go to the Hospice and the prices
in the auction serve as an indicator of prices for wine from Bourgogne
for the coming year.  Happily for consumers, after years of the prices
going up, they have gone down the last few years.

The center of the town is honeycombed with caves, which were used
by the Duke's of Bourgogne and the church to store wine. The oldest
of these cellars belongs to Maison Drouhin a negociant and
winemaker. These are not open to the public and they don't
sell to individuals. But it is possible to arrange a tour.
This we had done and we  had an appointment.

Before heading off for Beaune we went to visit the winemaker
who had made the wine we had enjoyed the evening before, in front
of the fire. There was some danger in this, as many wines taste
wonderful sitting in front of a fire, on a cold night in the country
or sitting on a sunny  terrace in the summer, but when you get them
back to Paris and are serving them to your friends the "magic" is gone.
This was a small winery in Gevrey Chambertin and the hotel people doubted
that there would be much left to sell.

Many  of the wineries in Bourgogne and the Rhone are very small and
unlike wineries in Napa there is no back stock to sell. The assumption 
is that either you have a place to age it yourself or you buy from
a winestore. So of course we couldn't have what we had the evening before.
But for a few minutes it looked like we couldn't have anything. All
the previous years were sold out and the current stock fully reserved.
"So how does one ever become a customer?", I asked. "If you sell out
under reserve every year?" Well there was some discussion about how
our friends had come all the way from the USA and couldn't come back
in the early spring, if we wanted to reserve some of the next vintage now.

We mentioned that we had an appointment at Drouhin, hoping
to establish that we were serious people who appreciated finding
a small little known place and not just people who didn't care what
we drank as long as it was wet. Well perhaps they could find something
to sell us but we had to understand we could only have a few bottles
each and we shouldn't even think of opening it before 7 years. We nodded
(trying to look serious) and descended into the cellar. 

On our way out the winemakers wife said that we should really go over
and see Mr. X. They had a much bigger operation in a chateau and we would
get to see an interesting range of Pommards, Chambolle Musigny etc. Well
we had this appointment in Beaune in an hour and 15 minutes. But they
all said no problem it would take 15 minutes to drive to Beaune (wrong!).
So we call Mr X. who was out in the fields and he says, if Mme Y sends
you over, no problem. So we drive off to this chateau in Gevrey
Chambertin where we are met by the grandson of the founder.
He tells us that he has some clients coming to pick up some wine
but he will just be 5 minutes with them. We are beginning to worry
about the time but he assures us it is no problem. He gives us
a very interesting lecture about the weather conditions at various 
times in the life of these particular wines, with me translating
into english. We will just taste one or two. (Famous last words)
An hour later, now late for our appointment we leave.
We have successfully held down the number of wines that we tasted
and been given a bottle of 1987 Grand Cru as gift with the assurances
that we really wouldn't like it much. Its not nearly as good as the
wine we tasted and next time call earlier and we can spend some more
time.

At this point we race to Beaune and begin to apologize abjectly for
being late for our appointment. (We did call from the last place and warn
them). The tour of the cellars was a great success and our guests appreciated
the oldest ones dug in the 12th century for the church which have an
arched top like in the church itself.

We spent the early afternoon wandering around Beaune and then
decide to drive off onto the back roads and see some of the smaller
villages. So we spend the afternoon driving, walking and climbing
around in the backcountry around Beaune. It was a wonderful autumn
day. At one point we were parked high on a hill near an old ruined
chateau. We looked down across the valley and saw the fields
people on  horses and the beautiful woods. Our method consisted
of picking a small village that looked like it might be old and
interesting and taking the smallest possible roads to get there.
The idea was  to spend as much time as possible going through
little interesting places especially if it meant taking an indirect 
route. We stopped frequently and turned off in alternate directions
on any possible provocation. We probably spent 2 or 3 hours
convering 10 or 12 kilometers. Then as it began to get dark we headed
off for the hotel. It being November many things were closed. But
we had a lot of fun walking around the grounds and the woods.

The hotel that night was an old favorite that I had deliberately
avoided describing to our guests.  It is a small castle with 2 towers
that belonged to the Knights of Malta in the 12th century although
the majority of the hotel was built in the 17th century.
It is very pretty and we had the rooms in the towers. It is called
Hotellerie de Bellecroix and is near Chagny. It was more
expensive then the hotel the previous night and the rooms
were on the order of 550FF.

As we drove off the rather uninteresting national route 
we came upon the hotel covered with vines and ivy and lit
up, looking like a miniature castle. We checked in,
assuring the people working there that we were not in fact
several weeks early and that they must have written our
reservations on the wrong day, yes we were sure.

The grounds of the hotel are not very large but there are some
interesting out buildings and the remains of what looks like a chapel.

The restaurant in the hotel was nice and friendly. The food was
excellent although it wasn't in the class of the meal the
night before. This was alright with us as there is a limit
to the number of meals like that you can eat on consecutive
days and still be able to climb around the next day. 


The next morning we went off through the fog to drive around
the Cote de Beaune. There was a heavy fog and so we crawled
along through Chassagne Montrachet, Mersault and Pouligny Montrachet.
We visited some interesting wineries which I had called from
Paris and the hotel. In the afternoon the fog had lifted and
we went off toward Bussy Rabutin, Flavigny-sur-Ozerain
and to Chateauneuf.

Bussy Rabutin is an interesting chateau. It belonged to a cousin 
of Mme de Sevigne, Roger Rabutin. In his youth he attended an
orgy where he made up some rude rhymes about the young Louis XIV
and his sweetheart. For this he was banished from Paris to Bourgogne.
While he was there he wrote a book called the Amourous History of
the Galles, to entertain his mistress who came down from Paris
to share his exile. Under the cover of being a historical book,
this was a satirical rendition of the many love affairs going
on in the court. (Some people never learn). He was then jailed
in the Bastille for a year and then exiled to Bourgogne for the
rest of his life.  I think that he was allowed only once to 
come up to Paris to go to the dentist. So he had a great deal
of spare time to spend decorating the chateau, all alone as his 
mistress drew the line when he was sent to the Bastille. The whole
place was pretty quiet that time of year.

Flavigny is on a hill with a lovely view.
This town was a bustling center of commerce in the 8th century
because of the abbey and the castle there. If you lived in that
area at that time this was where the action was. Now there is a
population of ~400 and it looks like an illustration of the word
sleepy.  So that was pretty interesting.


Finally as darkness began to fall we headed toward north Bourgogne
and Avallon were we were spending the night. In Avallon we were 
staying at a place that we had only stayed at in the summer,
when we were on our way down to the South of France. It is in
an old mill, now a hotel. The hotel is on a stream in the woods.
We ate in the glass enclosed dining room. Dinner was wonderful.
In the morning we all explored the garden and the stream.
The leaves of the trees which hung over the stream were brightly
colored and the whole effect was just beautiful. Our guests began
to question the wisdom of leaving at all. 

In Avallon we went to the Saturday market. That part of Bourgogne is known
for the terrific smelly cheeses. So we bought some cheeses we
couldn't find easily in Paris. It was a real struggle not to
load up on cheese. We wandered around Avallon which has some interesting
winding streets and its original walls. 


Finally after a wonderful, romantic 4 days in the country
we headed back to Paris.

--
L.S. Grob
Chorus syste`mes			phone +33-1-30-64-82-17
6 avenue Gustave Eiffel			fax   +33-1-30-57-00-66	
F78182 Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines	email grob@chorus.fr	
FRANCE
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