Sunday in Burgundy
I spent today in wine country, and it was an adventure. Upon arriving in Dijon, one of the things that I picked up was a brochure the burgundy producers' association puts out with a list of all the festivals going on each weekend in the summer. You need to know a bit about French wine here. Of course it's classified by region, and within each region you have sub-categories based on style, or specific towns within a region. So you've got about 30 small towns where Burgundy is made, and within each town you can have between 5 - 30 producers. It's overwhelming, but a happy dillema.
The brochure informed me that Sauvigny le Beaune was having its wine festival May 6 & 7. Talk about good fortune - this is one of the towns producing Grand Crus - the best of the best. My original plan was to wake up Sunday morning, rent a car for the day, and drive out there. It's about 40 miles outside of Dijon. Ends up the car rental places here in town are only open from 5-9pm on Sunday. Stupid French. Can you imagine a Hertz counter back home that's only open for 4 hours on a holiday weekend? They would've only had manual transmission mini-cars anyway, so it's probably just as well.
Not being one who is easily deterred (and with absolutely nothing better to do), I headed for the train station which was just a few blocks away. Found a train to Beaune and figured that was closer to Sauvigny le Beaune than where I was standing, so I bought a ticket. 30 minutes later I was there, walking from the train station to the small old city center. Heard some people speaking English (you develop a radar for this when you spend time alone in a foreign country) so I looked in and saw that they were standing in a bike rental shop I was passing. Ends up the guy running the shop speaks fluent English and knows the region very well.
After exchanging pleasantries with the other Americans (from Tennessee, in fact), I explained my mission to the bike guy (Thierry) and he said he could help me. I was only 3 miles from Sauvigny le Beaune, even closer than it had looked on the map. So I rented a bike, Thierry gave me a couple maps and some good directions, and I was on my way biking through Burgundy. It was threatening to rain, I found myself lost about 2 blocks away from Thierry's shop, but after some re-orientation of the map, I was back on the right track. Thierry sent me to Chorey and then on to Alexe Corton, which made for a very scenic ride. He taught me that the unmarked paved roads are the best, because those are generally the ones they use for the tractors during the harvest - there are no road signs on them because they don't want tourists using them. They make for great bike paths! I recalled a story Barbie Schmenner told about her adventures biking through Ireland, and decided to name this the "First Annual Barbie Schmenner Biking through Burgundy tour." When you meet her at the wedding, it'll make more sense.
About 30 minutes later I arrived in Sauvigny le Beaune. Beautiful small town, little chateau on the edge of town. They sure had a party going on too. You show up at the tourist office in the town square, pay 3 Euro for a glass, and then you just start walking around town. They had 24 vineyards with shops in town that were participating in the festival today. This is really great, because a lot of these places are not normally open to the general public. It's not like the US where every winery has standard opening hours when you can go for a tasting.
About an hour later I was 4 wineries into the tour and getting fairly polluted, fairly quickly. What a deal though! 3 Euro for all the burgundy you care to drink? In a town full of the best wines of the region?! And if you find yourself getting too tipsy, they've got a free little train that takes you from winery to winery around the village. I'd tell you about all the great wine that I tasted, but you can probably guess that I had a great time.
After the tasting it was back into town to return the bike. I stopped in the old town to take some pictures, but after a while here you just get de-sensitized to the beauty of these old towns. "Oh yeah, another cathedral from the 1400s - neat." Sad but true. I had a couple more glasses of wine at the bar by the train station (couldn't wait with an empty glass, now could I?) and headed back to Dijon.
The brochure informed me that Sauvigny le Beaune was having its wine festival May 6 & 7. Talk about good fortune - this is one of the towns producing Grand Crus - the best of the best. My original plan was to wake up Sunday morning, rent a car for the day, and drive out there. It's about 40 miles outside of Dijon. Ends up the car rental places here in town are only open from 5-9pm on Sunday. Stupid French. Can you imagine a Hertz counter back home that's only open for 4 hours on a holiday weekend? They would've only had manual transmission mini-cars anyway, so it's probably just as well.
Not being one who is easily deterred (and with absolutely nothing better to do), I headed for the train station which was just a few blocks away. Found a train to Beaune and figured that was closer to Sauvigny le Beaune than where I was standing, so I bought a ticket. 30 minutes later I was there, walking from the train station to the small old city center. Heard some people speaking English (you develop a radar for this when you spend time alone in a foreign country) so I looked in and saw that they were standing in a bike rental shop I was passing. Ends up the guy running the shop speaks fluent English and knows the region very well.
After exchanging pleasantries with the other Americans (from Tennessee, in fact), I explained my mission to the bike guy (Thierry) and he said he could help me. I was only 3 miles from Sauvigny le Beaune, even closer than it had looked on the map. So I rented a bike, Thierry gave me a couple maps and some good directions, and I was on my way biking through Burgundy. It was threatening to rain, I found myself lost about 2 blocks away from Thierry's shop, but after some re-orientation of the map, I was back on the right track. Thierry sent me to Chorey and then on to Alexe Corton, which made for a very scenic ride. He taught me that the unmarked paved roads are the best, because those are generally the ones they use for the tractors during the harvest - there are no road signs on them because they don't want tourists using them. They make for great bike paths! I recalled a story Barbie Schmenner told about her adventures biking through Ireland, and decided to name this the "First Annual Barbie Schmenner Biking through Burgundy tour." When you meet her at the wedding, it'll make more sense.
About 30 minutes later I arrived in Sauvigny le Beaune. Beautiful small town, little chateau on the edge of town. They sure had a party going on too. You show up at the tourist office in the town square, pay 3 Euro for a glass, and then you just start walking around town. They had 24 vineyards with shops in town that were participating in the festival today. This is really great, because a lot of these places are not normally open to the general public. It's not like the US where every winery has standard opening hours when you can go for a tasting.
About an hour later I was 4 wineries into the tour and getting fairly polluted, fairly quickly. What a deal though! 3 Euro for all the burgundy you care to drink? In a town full of the best wines of the region?! And if you find yourself getting too tipsy, they've got a free little train that takes you from winery to winery around the village. I'd tell you about all the great wine that I tasted, but you can probably guess that I had a great time.
After the tasting it was back into town to return the bike. I stopped in the old town to take some pictures, but after a while here you just get de-sensitized to the beauty of these old towns. "Oh yeah, another cathedral from the 1400s - neat." Sad but true. I had a couple more glasses of wine at the bar by the train station (couldn't wait with an empty glass, now could I?) and headed back to Dijon.
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