Start of the Wine Trip

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we all arrived in Paris to start our adventure! we hopped a train to Beaune and checked into our hotel and began to explore Beaune. Beaune is a major tourist town for the Burgundy region, it is one of the bigger towns and it lies right in the middle of the valley.
If you don't know anything about Burgundy, i didn't know a thing before this trip, here is a rough descpription: there is a valley in France that is perfect for growing grapes that are perfect for making wine. The soil is perfect the amount of sunlight and rain is perfect so after 2000 years of growing grapes and making wine they have only begun to perfect the art, not science, of wine making.
The next morning we meet at Hotel Le Cep, which is the "trunk" of the grape vine, and meet our giudes. Matthieu is a buddy of mine from high school days who I ran into in the states and he told me about his biking tours and I told my parents and they signed us up. His girlfriend Christen was the other, full of life, guide. We toasted with some Cremant and saddled up and rode through 3 towns and a whole bunch of vineyards. Matthieu gave us lessons on how the vines grow down to the water source, vertical no horizonal growth here, and told us there where laws against irrigation and pesticides.
Each town has their own type of wine and each is completely different it is all in the soil, how much rain, how much sunlight and a whole bunch of other variables that effect the nurtrients and minerals in the grape. 2005 was the best year in a century, so if you can get your hands on some 2005 it is going to be better than any other years. But a wise man told me "Any wine that you like is a good wine, doesn't matter the year or cost, if it is good to you it is a good wine." So if you like Sutter Homes then Sutter Homes is a good wine.
We bike all day and we ended up at 5 star hotels at night. We were straight ballin' for a week. the first day we biked through 3 towns and stopped for a wine tasting in Pommard. After tasting some of the areas best wine and even wine straight out of the barrel! After drinking wine our first hotel was at the top of a mountain.... which meant we had to ride straight uphill for 30 minutes to get there. It was awesome! The hotel used to be an old boar hunting camp and it was tucked up in the mountain so you where surrounded by woods and in the evening you could here the boar and deer in the woods. The food on this trip was 5 star too. i have never eaten so good so many days in a row. Every night we until we had to be rolled back to the hotel.
This is just the beginning of the blog entries. we took a total of 1,700 pictures and videos so i am going to post a day or two at a time so you can see how beautiful it was. there is no to describe how wonderful and awesome the landscape and people are but this is the only means i have to let you in on a little place i like to call Burgundy France....

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Photos

still awake
i was awake for 30 something hours. due to a hurt tail bone i didn't get any sleep on the plane ride...

town square
every town square has a bell tower and they all have a rooster which is the sign for the French Revolution

window
i think Rapunzel lived in there

Our Hogs
just like in front of Loggerheads!

a toast
Champagne is only champagne if it is from the champagne region, we toasted with Cremant that is from Burgundy, from a guy named Greg we will meet later in our trip

toasting the trip
look at my Cremant face! ha

Matthieu
our fearless guide explaining how grapes are grown