"Bonjour de Beaune" ... or can I just say "Beaune jour"? (Sorry, Sarah.)
Épernay to Beaune
On Tuesday we drove three hours and a bit south from Épernay, in the Champagne region, to Beaune, in the heart of Burgundy, or La Bourgogne. On the way, we stopped off to see the cathedral in Châlons-en-Champagne, which has lovely rose windows on both sides of the transept. Finding the cathedral proved to be a bit of an adventure.
The streets in Châlons are (as they are in most French cities) so narrow that it is difficult to tell them from passageways or alleys. When the GPS tells you to take the third exit from the roundabout, we cannot always tell what counts as an "exit." Streets that are one-way coming into the roundabout apparently do not count. Neither do driveways or alleys. After making a couple of large circles, we simply parked the car on an outlying street and walked in to the center to find the cathedral.
After Châlons, we got on our first French toll road. We had worried a lot about getting in the wrong pay lane when we exited, but it proved to be very easy (if a bit expensive). No complaints from me so far about the French roads or drivers. All went according to plan and we arrived in Beaune mid-afternoon Tuesday.
Beaune
Beaune is built around the old city, which is contained in city walls that in large part still exist, surrounded by a green area (perhaps the old moat?) some of which has been made into parking.
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| Parking lot "Republique" just ouside the walls |
The Hôtel Athanor, where we are staying, is in the old city, where driving is allowed but parking is expensive and only short term.
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| Hôtel Athanor |
When I checked in, the clerk insisted on showing me the way to the room. This seemed like special service, but turned out to be truly necessary given the labyrinthine path we then followed. To the right, then down a hall to the left into the breakfast room. Then out a tiny door in the corner of the breakfast room into a narrow, stone spiral staircase and up one floor to a little hall with two rooms off of it. One of these rooms is ours, a large chamber with huge irregular exposed timbers holding up the ceiling. Wow. The building was once a nunnery associated with the Collègiale Notre-Dame, a large church a block away. As I climb the well-worn steps I can just imagine that I am following in the track of thousands of young novices of past centuries ascending to their cells.
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| Our room with ceiling timbers |
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| View from our second-story window |
So, time to eat ... or not! Dinner on Tuesday proved a challenge too far. We wandered the old city for most of an hour examining menus at jam-packed restaurants and bistros, but every menu had rich selections of all variety of dead-animal parts and virtually nothing involving vegetables. We finally sat down around 6:30 in a bistro near the hotel that seemed to have a few fish dishes, only to find that they didn't even begin to serve food until 7:00. But not to worry, a wonderful cheese shop plus the last baguette from a near-closing boulangerie provided sustenance in our room, together with nice bottle of 2009 Pommard from one of the hundred or so wine shops crammed between the bistros and brasseries on every street and corner.
Unlike Épernay, which seemed like a small city that happened to have wine as its leading industry, Beaune is a haven for tourism, especially wine tourism. As a wine tourist, I shouldn't really complain, but the number of wine-related businesses and the hordes of people swarming on every sidewalk and square are a little overwhelming.
Maison Joseph Drouhin
One of the attractions that brought us specifically to Beaune is Maison Joseph Drouhin, whose Domaine Drouhin Oregon offshoot in the Willamette Valley makes some of our favorite Oregon wine. Dyane Savino at DDO was kind enough to arrange for us to take a complimentary tour of their cellars with a tasting of six wonderful wines. Drouhin is not the oldest winemaker in Burgundy, but they surely have the best cellar location. Their cellars in the center of Beaune are in the former mansion of the Collègiale Notre-Dame, across the street from our hotel and right next to the church. Here are some pictures of their lovely reception and sales room:
The tour began next to the church in a building that our guide Benjamin described as the church's original winery, where wine has been made at least since the 1200s. The first room featured a wonderful ancient wine press, which the Drouhin family brought back into service a few years ago to make a special release. For the first pressing of the grapes, the wooden platforms just behind my left shoulder in the picture would be removed, the grapes would be placed on the bottom surface, then the platforms were returned to press out the first juice. For the second pressing, the monks would turn the giant wheel that is partially visible at the far right, activating via pulley a large screw-press, which gradually lowered the big horizontal beam (below and behind the coil of rope) onto the wooden platforms, pressing more and more juice from the grapes. At each pressing, the juice passed through the basket in front, which filtered out the larger stems, and into the bucket below.
From the pressing room, we went down a narrow, winding, stone staircase to the church's equally ancient cellar, filled with barrels of chardonnay and pinot noir. Benjamin explained a lot of the history of the site and of the Drouhin winery. Going through a narrow passage, we came to the other, "newer" part of their cellar, which lies below the palace of the Dukes of Burgundy (now a wine museum, see below). This cellar, which only goes back 500-600 years, was the cellar of the Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings of France until Joseph Drouhin bought it, along with the church properties, in 1880. One wall of the cellar (slightly fuzzy picture below) was part of the first city walls erected by the Romans nearly two thousand years ago. The younger generations of the Drouhin family moved the main pressing, barreling, and bottling processes to a new facility on the outskirts of Beaune in the late 1900s, so the cellars here in town are now used only for storing barrels and bottles.
Finally, of course, we got to the "dégustation" or tasting part of the tour. They had six wines for us to taste, three whites (chardonnay) and three reds (pinot noir). My goodness, what wonderful wines! The three whites were from different regions of Bourgogne, starting with a 2011 Chablis Premier Cru, followed by a lovely 2012 wine from Meursault and finally a 2009 single-vineyard selection from Chassagne-Montrachet. The first of the three reds was a 2012 Chorey-les-Beaune, a blend from a number of vineyards in the Beaune region, then a 2008 Premier Cru from the Damodes vineyard in Nuits-Saint-Georges, and finally one of the very best wines I have ever tasted: their signature Clos des Mouche from 1996. After the tasting, I managed to leave most of their inventory for others, but we did leave with a wonderful mixed case (including a bottle of the 1996 Clos des Mouche!) that we will enjoy during our time in Europe.
La Moutarderie
So that was our Wednesday morning! Wednesday afternoon was a tour and tasting at a mustard-maker: Edmond Fallot. We were part of a tour group of ~20, of whom the two of us and three young Asian visitors were the only non-French speakers. Our very patient tour guide Catherine said everything in French at each stop, then turned to the five of us with a resigned "Donc ..." and repeated the whole description in English. At one stop, most of the group got to make their own mustard by grinding together mustard seeds, salt, and vinegar water, but we were at the back of the line and too late to get a station. Grinding mustard seeds seems to be hard work! Of course, the moutarderie has power tools to accomplish what inexperienced hands with mortar and pestle find difficult.
We left with lots of special mustards and a great appreciation for how this favorite garnish is made. A few key points we learned (they might be on the test!): First, although we are only a few miles from the most famous city of mustard, Dijon mustard need not be made in or near Dijon (unlike, say, champagne or burgundy wines), it only needs to be made by the Dijon recipe. Second, there are only a few moutarderies left in Burgundy, and few of those that actually grow their mustard seeds here. Mustard seeds grew very well as a by-product of the production of charcoal, and when traditional charcoal production declined, so did the growing of mustard seeds. Third, even Edmond Fallot, which prides itself on its Burgundian heritage, imports a large proportion of its mustard seeds from the Canadian plains!
We had much better luck with dinner on Wednesday, thanks to the recommendation of the kind folks at Joseph Drouhin. Pasta and salad at Brasserie Le Carnot, with a half liter of a magnificent Savigny-les-Baune pinot noir. I could live here as long as I had Suzanne to cook for me ...
Hôtel-Dieu
The Hôtel-Dieu, or Les Hospices de Beaune, in the center of Beaune was built in 1452 by nobleman Nicolas Rolin as a hospital for the poor; it continued to serve as Beaune's hospital until 1971, when a modern hospital (under the management of the same people) was constructed. The magnificent building has been restored from the original plans to its state when it served the impoverished residents of Beaune in the 15th and 16th centuries. One enters directly into the courtyard between two long structures: the Great Room of the Poor with the blue slate roof, and the parallel building with the magnificent tiled roof, which housed rooms for wealthy paying clients, the pharmacy, and the kitchen.
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| Great Room of the Poor |
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| Inside the Great Room of the Poor |
Over the years, the mission of the Hôtel-Dieu was supported by both the Dukes of Burgundy and many of its wealthy citizens. Among the generous donations were sections of vineyards, which now amount to more than 60 hectares of mostly Grand Cru and Premier Cru grapes. The proceeds from the wine they make support the activities of the hospital.
With the English-language audio-guide that they provided, the history, architecture, and significance of the Hôtel-Dieu was very clearly explained. Wonderful tour!
Musée du Vin de Bourgogne
Our final sightseeing destination in Beaune was an afternoon trek to the Museum of Wines Burgundy, located in the Duke's Palace immediately behind the Drouhin reception area and above their cellars. The museum covered the history, geography, and industry of wine in Burgundy. Among the most interesting features were a 20-minute movie about barrel-making and a room-sized relief map of the region showing all of the villages that are so famous on wine labels and the locations of Premier Cru and Grand Cru vineyards. They also had an outside display of very impressive wine presses.
A final note: After two days of effort, we managed to get a SIM card installed in Suzanne's phone, which will enable her to make calls and use the Internet without Wi-Fi. Yay! This was not nearly as easy as it should have been. (It took 5 minutes in New Zealand, but then we speak much better New Zealandese than we do French!)
What's next? Tomorrow we depart for Lyon, with a few stops along the way. Another post will be coming your way in a couple of days, once we have more to talk about!
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