Advertisement
Published: July 17th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Our Burgundy wine tour is today and we are very exited to learn more about the terroir and the wines of this region. We enjoyed our breakfast at hotel le cep which is served in the cellar. They have the coolest machine that makes fresh orange juice... I wish we could have filmed it!
Our guides today are Joy and Rob. Lucky for us, Joy picked us up at our hotel at 9:00am in an Avis rental SUV because her range rover was having issues yesterday. Rob, her husband picked up a nice English couple and 4 individuals from Hong kong (1 guy and 3 girls). One of the girls was absolutely adorable. We met the other group on a hillside in the village of Nuit Saint George overlooking all the beautiful parcels of land with vineyards. The Appelation d'Origine Controlee (AOC) governs everything about the french wine industry. They control how many bottles of wine per acre to how far apart they plant the vines they even control inheritance rights.
We met the other group and stood at the highest point and our guide explained the 4 appellations to French burgundy wine. 1) Regional wines are those where
all the vines are planted on the lowest, flattest piece of land, generally these are not very good and are sold to restaurants as house wines. 2) Village wines must be grown within the boundaries of the village in which it can be labeled. these are often excellent wines as the growers take great pride in the village. 3) Premier cru wines are designated that due to the slope of the terroir and the type of soil. 4) Grand cru are the Very Best wines from this region, we stood by the vines of the top grand cru "romani conti". Our guide Joy said this wine sells for $4,000 euro per bottle!
First stop for tasting was in the Nuit Saint Georges village, Domaine Michel Noellat et fils. We tasted four reds and they were all quite young and not ready at all. Next stop was the monk musee and tasting room, I bought a bottle of very good Andre Ziltner Chambole Musigny. I now have 2 bottles to bring back in my luggage. I did bring a 2 bottle foam wine carrier that Norma gave me, thanks Norm.
We went to lunch at a small but very
cozy restaurant in the haute cote de bourgogne. Au Petit Bunheur in Curtil-Vergy where the "menu" is typically burgondonian. Jim and I enjoyed the ouefs bourgogne for our entree and for our main course, pig cheeks in a wonderful sauce! When in France! After lunch we went to 2 more wineries, wandered through charming clean beautiful villages. Joy returned us to our hotel around 5:00pm it was a wonderful and full day. We thought about doing this on our own but after spending the day with a guide, I am so glad that we scheduled the tour. We wandered through town, had dinner and returned to our hotel for a good nights rest dreaming of bourgogne wines. Bonne Nuit.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.028s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0643s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb