Burgundy recap

A little recap of Burgundy:
We arrive via train and take the bus (of course!) to Gevrey Chambertin. Its Sunday night, so we decide to grab a pizza from a mobile pizza station (I guess?) that we happened to pass. So yes, our first official Burgundonian meal was a jambon (ham) pizza. (good thing we did as NOTHING is open on Sunday)


FYI-evidently with sparkling (whether it be champagne or Cremant de Bourgone (dry cheaper sparkling from the region of Burgundy - can't be called Champagne unless it comes from Champagne - pictured below) they serve peanuts. I guess it makes some sense, since they say anything that goes with beer goes with sparkling...but still. Odd.



Wendesday night I got brave and tried escargot.

I was nervous...more about the "slippery little suckers" ;) than the taste...however, our hostess/waitress/bartender (small town) spoke English and told me how to eat them. They were SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO goood. Oh. my. god. YUM.

Wait, what about wines we had??

We had a ton of barrel tastings. We had wine that had been aged in French Oak, European Oak, had undergone malolactic fermentation, hadn’t, grapes from this village, that village….tons of tastings. It got to the point that we actually hoped that we weren’t going to have another barrel tasting. I know, the HORROR of being taken by a winemaker to their cellar to taste their wines! While there could be much worse fates, we decided we prefer completely ready wine instead of “on-its-way-to-being-ready-wine”. All that being said, we learned a lot from the winemakers and their barrel tastings. We started off with a visit to Domaine Debray in Beaune - Michel was awesome. The wines were good and very reasonably priced. We got some information about their exporter to the US.


We went to Alex Gambal - an American who decided to move to France. It was ok. Unless you're dying for a clear English explanation of the process, I'd say skip it. Probably what turned us off the most is that I specifically said we came here to taste wines we couldn't get in the US. After the barrel tasting, he serves us 2 wines that he knows are distributed in Missouri. That's it. Nothing else, nothing special, just 2 low end wines we can get at home. Thanks.

On my birthday we went to Domaine Durouche...he was funny. Barrel tasting, not too much else (we got to pick one wine to taste) but it was fun and he gave me a bottle for my birthday. I do love presents. ;)


We had lunch at Domaine Drouhin Laroze. No barrel tastings, not really a tour, but they have a lovely enclosed patio overlooking a small vineyard and they serve lunch to a small select group of people per appointment (there was one other table) I don't really know what the food was, but one was a quiche with walnuts. Hmm. Walnuts just don't get a lot of action in the cooking department so I was thrown off. It was...different. Ok, but different.


We also had some sort of veggie app, cheese plate for after dinner (so much cheese!) and then a mousse/ice cream dessert. STUFFED. It was lovely and we got to compare some Gevrey Chambertins from different classifications so it was a great birthday treat.

One of the best wines we had was from a random stop by: Philip Leclerc. He is old school....stomps grapes by feet, hand applies labels.....and his wine is fantastic. FANTASTIC. Bigger than most Burgundies, and tasty. (Mr. Lush and I have a dispute if this person is the winemaker, as a younger person is on the website. (this guy didn't speak very good English) I personally think the younger person is the son, but whatever.)

In his shop was a cool looking metal artpiece - here's a close up of it....

Our little town (seriously 2 miles from one end to the other, not including vineyards):

Some other misc Burgundy pics:

We didn't even get a chance to taste stuff from the place we stayed at - he was never open. We learned a lot about Burgundy, mostly that while staying at a Chateau in Bordeaux was totally worth it, its not quite as cool in Burgundy - most winemakers have little plots of vines all over Burgundy so its not like you're sitting next to the vineyard that makes the wine you're drinking. Most are also negociants as well as have their own vineyards (they buy grapes as well as grow their own). So its really more about getting to know the winemakers, which you can do from any hotel / B&B.

We learned enough about Bugundy wine to know that I need a stinkin topography map to know anything about where the wine comes from and there is a huge difference between classifications and where the vineyard is located. Also, language was more of an issue in Burgundy in general than in Bordeaux. Most people we encountered spoke fairly good english in Bordeaux....not so much in Burgundy. A few spoke "OK English" but that's about it.

Good time, overall. Oh who am I kidding?? A GREAT time and it was fantastic to spend my birthday tasting wines I loved.

Public Transportation in France

Ironically, the first real public transportation snaffu happened in a part of the trip where public transportation is readily available - Burgundy. There’s a bus system that takes you from town to town, within town, etc, and its ,90 Euro per person per segment. (a new “segment” occurs every 2 or 3 villages) Well, the snaffu happened Monday on our trip to Beaune. The bus ride should’ve been 3,60 Euros each (around $5) but because of poor planning / failure to check the bus schedule before going to bed, we missed the bus and had to take a cab….which was like $50. Ouch. (I know, Lucy, how could I plan so poorly!) But, despite being told we “Are really brave” and comments such as “Wow, really? No car?”, the public transportation route worked out for us- even with the language barrier.

Yes, that means lots of walking. At least 10,000 steps every day (5 miles), even on travel days, with some days being closer to 8 or 9 miles. My walking sandals (I purchased a pair of Eastland sandals) are thoroughly worn in. Thoroughly. This is what they looked like new....they really are comfortable...
So, while the public transportation route was easy on our pocketbooks, it was not easy on my feet….I guess I should add $30 to the cost of public transportation for my much needed pedicure when I get home. I think they may have to break out the sander to rid of the calluses on my heels. :)

PS- Mr. Lush hates me for not bringing tennis shoes - at the time I thought it was a good move, only having 2 pairs of shoes (walking sandals and nice sandals); it took up so much less space. However, walking a mile in the rain in sandals is not fun. Not one bit. *sigh* I guess he is right and I should’ve brought another pair. Or at least found a way to purchase the ever popular Chucks. (really, about 80% of the under 30 crowd wears Converse here- which I barely qualified to wear them, but I still qualified ;) (I know, past tense- I DID qualify. Not now.)

More updates soon…..sorry for the multiple posts at once, finally got internet again.

She said/he said take on St. Emilion

Ok, where did I last leave off? I know, its been a long time!!! I think it was last Thursday night, when we arrived in Saint Emilion. I’ll fill you in and Mr. Lush and I will do a “She said/He said” version of this post. Of course, Mr. Lush will get the easy part, I’m sure throwing humorous commentary to my otherwise painstakingly detailed blog entry, but I will allow him this luxury - he has been wonderful on the trip, caring most of the luggage, tending to this and that. ;)

FRIDAY:
SHE SAID:
We had our first appointment at 10am with Chateau Puy-Razac, a Grand Cru. (Real quick for you non wine drinkers - both wines in Bordeaux and St. Emilion are called “Bordeaux wines”, named after the general wine region in France. They are classified in quality, which is what this Grand Cru business is all about.) I had planned on walking but we didn’t get up as early as we had hoped and it was a lot hotter than I planned, so we took a taxi. However, the taxi had NO idea where this place was…. (keep in mind, I purposely booked small scale production wineries for a personalized experience). Eventually we found it and he did discount the taxi fare, although I think we still got ripped off, but whatever.

We got there and Catherine, the winemaker and owner, was very excited to see us. (It appeared that she didn’t often get visitors.) Her English was a bit choppy, but she put forth a great effort and when in a pinch, the Lingo (electronic translator lent to us by Mr. and Mrs. D - thanks guys!) came in handy. She took us through the winemaking process, showed us the concrete vats (she’s pretty old school, most use Stainless Steel for the fermentation process, but concrete vats were previously used) talked about how she ages her wine, how many times she re-uses the oak barrels and - how she tried American Oak and doesn’t like it. (most French prefer French oak - it had a less strong flavor) Then she let us taste wine that was currently aging (2008) out of the vat, out f the barrel and let us also taste the 2007 that was still aging in the American Oak.

It was interesting to compare the tastes and the American Oak had a strong cigar aroma in comparison to the wine aged in French Oak. We had the 2006, the current vintage for sale, while chatting with her in the garden about her family and her life. We purchased two bottles and she drove us to the town of St. Emilion (maybe a mile away, but it was nice to be driven). We had a quick little pizza and a soda at a place close by, since it was 11:30 and we hadn’t had breakfast and were starving.

We piddled around St. Emilion, took pictures, had a glass or two of wine while waiting for our 5pm appointment with Chateau Gaudet, a Grand Cru Classe. (he’s the one who randomly found my blog and suggested I come visit)

Here’s a few pictures of St. Emilion:

Vincent Lignac walked us through his family’s history with the Chateau, the Chateau’s history, his winemaking process, etc. He was informative and his English was excellent due to a couple trips to the US and to Australia for winemaking, but the underground cellars stole the show. They were from 1791 and were just awesome- they had tons of older wine, some were theirs (oldest was 1914) and he had a few bottles of Chateau Mouton Rothschild from…1889. Wow. I asked what would qualify as an occasion to drink such a wine- he laughed and said “whenever you feel the time is right”. He said you have to take the bottle back to them every now and then and have them re-cork it and if you drank it you would have 15 minutes tops before it became undrinkable. Good to know, should I ever have a wine that’s 120 years old. ;) We had the 2001 and 2005, ended up purchasing a bottle of the 1998, a half bottle of both the 2001 and 2005. We would have purchased more, but we just couldn’t find a way to ship things back.




For dinner we went to a place he had recommended, L‘Envours du Ecors (which turned out to be a well recommended place by all locals). We had a foie gras appetizer- the server suggested we have a sauternes or semi-sweet wine with it. I ordered the semi sweet and Mr. Lush ordered a richer white wine. I was little surprised with the foie gras came out - last time I had it it was a sautéed pice of duck liver, this was more of a paste. It was good, however, and the semi-sweet wine went very well with it. For dinner I had fish and Mr. Lush had duck confit which was rather overdone. Afterwards we tried to call a taxi as it was a couple miles back to the Chateau, but no one answered and so we broke down and called Phillip, who came and got us. We tried, believe it or not, to not take advantage of Phillip’s generosity, but it just happened to be that we had no other choice many times or the timing worked out. As it worked out for this time, he was dropping off a couple women in Saint Emilion at the same exact time, so we were happy to know we didn’t totally inconvenience him.

HE SAID:
Yep.
Just kidding: While “piddling around” I walked up a gorgeous bell tower where the view was amazing! (see pics) Vincent our guide said on a clear day in the morning you can see Bordeaux (45 mins away). One thing I would say about going in the shops beware of the workers who ask the year you were born. They are just trying to get rid of some old wine. Yes it is cool to have a label from 82 J but 40 E is not worth it.

She said: "82" my arse! Is that what year you graduated high school????

SATURDAY:
SHE SAID:
We hung around Chateau Monlot while Phillip took us on a tour with his friend who was visiting, then we went and saw some limestone underground caves, then Phillip dropped us off at Chateau Mauvezin, another Grand Cru. The Chateau owner, Olliver Cassat, greet us and told us the Chateau had been in his family for 400 years. Wow. Anyway, he also took us through his winemaking techniques, but here we received an excellent explanation of terrior (the differences in ground/soil and how that effects the wine). He owns vineyards on 4 different terriors, and in the end we purchased the terrior sampler pack (his 4 wines, same year, made from grapes grown in different soil types).

We did end up shipping it back- he recommended a wine shop that would let us ship his stuff, along with wines purchased from them (which we tasted a few of them first). It was a bit expensive, far more than I wanted to pay, but we certainly can’t come to France and not come back with SOME wine. That evening we just sat around and ate some sandwiches (had to make up for the money spent on wine with a cheap meal, ya know) and enjoyed sitting the garden.

All in all, we had a great time in St. Emilion. I had hoped to try a Bordeaux as old as I, but it wasn’t in the cards. I did my best to plan, but I did overestimate the availability of taxis….I had planned on walking some and when we were tired or far away, the plan was to take taxis back. However, we found there isn’t a lot of taxi availability in the evenings. (which also was a surprise for the 2 London women who didn’t rent a car) We had been fine thus far in our trip using a combination of walking and public transportation, and Burgundy has a very nice bus system (it appears we are about .14 miles from a bus stop) so hopefully we’re ok there, but in St. Emilion there just isn‘t enough taxi availability and no public transportation. Without Phillip we probably would’ve been a bit SOL, so next time I suppose we‘ll rent a car.

HE SAID: The tour of Monlot was cool it was nice to run by what we half heard (our bad for not speaking French very well) at other tours to a person who spoke perfect English. These “oh yeah underground caves” were flippin awesome. They were built for 100 year war. She may post pics of these. The caves reinforced the limestone soil stuff that we heard so much about. After visiting the caves we went to a graveyard. While this may seem weird to say, it was pretty.

A good time was had!