We left Champagne country by car and headed South to the capitol of Burgundy – Dijon. It was a nice and easy 3 hour car ride.
We rented from AirBnB and found ourselves in a quaint one bedroom flat, with a nice balcony, and most importantly great WiFi. WiFi has been challenging on a good amount of this trip. Since Peter works everyday from his computer, its really a sense of relief when there is reliable and fast Internet.
We arrived early evening and decided to take a stroll around Dijon. It was Sunday and the next day was Bastille day so most things were closed and it was pretty quiet. On Bastille day hardly anyone works so the city was for the most part shut down for two days.
We did find a plaza area that had some activity and open restaurants. We sat outside and we both ordered pizza with ham and cheese. It was the first time we ordered pizza as we wanted to wait to eat pizza till Italy, but it was actually really delicious. We also ordered a couple glasses of Burgundy.
That night was the championship game for the World Cup, Germany vs Argentina. I had done some research online and found us an Irish bar to watch it, Flannery’s. It was perfect. Really close to where we were staying and they had a number of giant flat screens. We got there about 90 minutes early and were able to grab an ideal spot. By the time the game started the bar was packed. A couple of French girls joined our table and seemed to be really interested in engaging us. They were trying to figure out why we would come to Dijon for our honeymoon and we explained that this was one of many spots on a year of travel.
At half time a young French guy joined our table. He didn’t speak much English and seemed to be at our table for the girls. At one point I got up to go to the bathroom and as soon as I was out of earshot, the guy started asking Peter what he thought of French women. My new found friends defended me and told him, “He’s married.” And they shooed him away.
While I was in the bathroom a French girl started speaking to me in French. She was being very smiley and seemed really happy. When she realized I didn’t speak French, she said, “Sorry, who are you rooting for?” I told her Argentina and then we both laughed because Peter and I were the only ones in the bar for the most part that was rooting for Argentina. The French were all for Germany who’s border is just a couple hours away from Dijon.
It was at this point that I realized a couple things. So many of the younger people in France speak English and that the people in Dijon seemed a lot friendlier then the other places we had been in France, particularly Paris. I am not saying we did not encounter friendly people, because we did, its just that we certainly encountered some really pissed off Parisians for no apparent reason.
Germany wins, the French go crazy. So crazy in fact that you would have thought France was playing Argentina.
We walked home after the game and to my delight, my girlfriends back home were having a wine club so we planned to FaceTime. They were meeting earlier in the day on Sunday so the timing worked out. Jen Ford was hosting and Corrine, Lisa, Lauren, Melissa, Sophie, and Shastin were attending. It was really fun and very entertaining. Remember I have text and I love to hear from everyone back home. Also I can FaceTime so pick up the phone and call us. Jessica Bundshuh gave us a random FaceTime the other day and she was able to enjoy a beautiful sunset from Lisbon with Peter and I.
The next day was Bastille Day which is celebrated every July 14th and commemorates the French Revolution. That evening we walked over to Lake Kir to partake in a fireworks show with the locals. It was quite different from any fireworks display we had seen before. On the lake there was floating docks with fireworks shooting off in sync to music. The music was all instrumental and on the haunting side. It was a production which we throughly enjoyed.
The next day we took a guided wine tour with Authentica. The tour consisted of a Chinese couple, a couple New Yorkers, a British couple, and us. Our tour guide was English, but had been living in France for the past 20 years. We learned at the beginning of the trip that the British guest was a bit of a connoisseur and had studied wine in England.
They say Burgundy (or Bourgogne) is the place you go to end your wine studies as the complexities, history, classification system, diversities of the climate each year would take a lifetime to master. So we figured it would be a good place to start our understanding of French wine (kidding).
We drove to the wine area Cote d’Or which consists of Cote de Beaune, and Cote de Nuits.
There are 3 main takeaways that Peter and I came to regarding Burgundy wines:
1. All Burgundy red is Pinot Noir. All Burgundy white is Chardonnay. Chablis is also made in Burgundy. As most of you know, if you pick up a French wine at the store it doesn’t tell you the grapes inside like US wines – you have to know that a red wine from Burgundy is going to be a Pinot. Producers in Burgundy are snobby about this exclusivity of grape saying that other regions can blend their grapes depending on what harvested well, and what did not. Burgundy’s expression comes from one year’s climate, one year’s grapes, one year’s production. Talk about pressure.
2. Classification are “terroir” (tear-wa) based – meaning the land determines everything. Hundreds of millions of years ago, Cote d’Or was underwater, and as such, just 4-6 feet under the soil is a bed of limestone in some parts of the area. The best “terroir” in Burgundy has wines that stretch into this limestone and sloping hillsides to allow proper drainage and ideal sun exposure for the temperamental grapes. It’s these minerals, which you can taste in the wine, that give Burgundy wines its unique taste, virtually impossible to imitate. The classifications from best to worst go in this order: Grand Cru, Premier Cru, Village and Regional.
3. So you’d think that you could pick up a Premier Cru of Burgundy and have a good Pinot, right? If it only it were that easy. The vineyards are all divided into plots with various owners and producers. So even though you might have an amazing terroir, if the wine-maker isn’t great, the wine can turn out just alright. So to really know Burgundy wines you have to know the year’s climate, the “terroir” classification AND the producer’s reputation.
Again, Burgundy, a place you go to END your wine education.
One thing I started to realize – the more I learned about wine, the more confusing it became. The most frustrating being the harvest years. For example, say you find an area in Burgundy and producer you like, just because a wine from that producer is older doesn’t mean its better (or priced more expensive). A good harvest year can make a wine better than a much older vintage. “Each vintage has its own personality” said our tour guide. Why would I know which years were better than others in Burgundy France! Peter mentioned that he understands a lot more clearly why some restaurants have sommeliers.
For part of the tour Peter and I visited the vineyards of Romanee Conti, which is in the Cote de Nuits of Burgundy. These grapes produce the world’s most expensive wine. It’s incredible because it’s a really, really small vineyard. In the picture below it’s formed in a boot. Three bottles of the 1990 were sold in the US for $72,000. In Hong Kong last year a case of the 1978 vintage went for just under half a million. I’ve read articles pricing certain vintages at $2,000+ per ounce. Those are some expensive grapes. Great terroir, legendary producer, and most importantly – exclusivity. So few bottles are produced.
We had a great time tasting, touring the bigger wineries and small tasting houses. Most of the others on our tour didn’t actually drink the wine. Typically they spit out and dumped out their wine. The English guy did a cool sort of slurp with his wine that made an interesting noise and provides more oxygen to the wine. He taught us the proper way to taste wine: smell, swirl, smell again, swirl the wine in your mouth, slurp, taste, and spit out the rest, or drink it. It’s been really fun because ever since then Peter has started to do the slurp part. 
It was surprisingly that even when we tried a Grand Cru wine everyone poured it out, well except for us and the New Yorker guys who admittedly said at the last tasting room, “I don’t know. They all taste good. I’m drunk.”
Below is some Winery fun.
It was a wonderful time spent in Burgundy. We learned a ton about this region and tasted some delicious wine. Lucky us because we were now off to Bordeaux to do more of the same.
For the love of wine,
Jaime
