Burgundy Trip

Something of a holiday and a pilgrimage, I visited Burgundy to see the vineyards, taste the wines, and simply soak up the atmosphere of this famous winemaking region. It was romantic and thrilling to stand next to the great vineyards I had previously only read about and walk through the sleepy villages whose names adorn bottles of wines around the world. But it was also a chance to appreciate the French way of life - the rich food, the local market, the hours spent doing as little as possible. Whether you're into wine or not, Burgundy is a great place to visit, beautiful, historic, and with a high appreciation of the finer things in life.

horse ploughing the field, Clos-de-Bèze Grand Cru, Gevrey-Chambertin

Beaune

I stayed in Beaune, the main town of the Côte de Beaune. This proved to be a great base, not only because of its location. It's a vibrant town, brought to life by the wine trade but with beautiful architecture, good but surprisingly affordable restaurants, and a lively nightlife (well, for a French town). Even more surprising given my many visits across France, the locals were extremely friendly and welcoming.

Hospices-de-Beaune

the villages

It doesn't take long to get from Beaune to the famous wine villages. Hiring a bike is a good way to explore the nearest villages: Pommard is just down the road, and before you realise it you're in Volnay. The land is quite flat, the greatest vineyards on gentle slopes that rise up to plateaux home to forests rather than vines. The villages are small and sleepy, with a restaurant or two to cater for passing tourists. They're so close to one another, the back streets connecting each village, separated just by a world-class vineyard or two.

Pommard

Beaune is slightly further from the Côtes de Nuits, but it's still an easy drive. This northern part of the Côte d'Or is less beautiful and the villages (especially Vosne-Romanée) more austere and less welcoming. It is home, however, to vineyards so famous and expensive that it's startling to see them lying protected by nothing more than a low stone wall.

the vineyards

There's little about standing next to a Grand Cru to suggest that it produces wine worth hundreds, if not thousands, of euros a bottle. Only a church-like stone gate distinguishes them from the vineyards around them. All the vines look identical, trained on the single Guyot system. Many producers in Burgundy are organic or biodynamic and the vineyards have lots of beautiful wild flowers growing between the vines.

Visiting the vineyards is something of a religious experience: like a cathedral, they are peaceful, secluded, and have been in the same spot for over a thousand years.

the wineries

Walking up to some of the most expensive vineyards in the world presents no problem, but actually tasting the wine made from them does. The wineries are located in small, family buildings in the villages and are largely closed to the public, very few of them offering tastings.

One winery that has a tasting room is Domaine LeFlaive in Puligny-Montrachet, though it's pricey: €40 for four tasting samples. In Beaune, Joseph Drouhin give a 90-minute tour of their historic winery, costing €38 per person, visiting the cold, ancient underground cellars with wines dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century and war tales of resistance fighters escaping the Nazis. At the end of the tour, there's a chance to taste six of Drouhin's wines.

old press at Joseph Drouhin

the French

My sister and I stopped off at a wine shop in the small village of Morey-St-Denis. The owner was happy to give us a tasting of three of the village's wines: a Village and two Premiers Crus. After tasting them, my sister asked if she could taste the Village wine again (wishing to save some money and buy a wine she could actually drink now). The woman paused and reddened: "I don't think that would be possible. It is not easy to taste a Village wine after a Premier Cru. You would not be able to appreciate it." "But I just want to see if I still like it." A deep intake of breath, a shake of the head, and a reluctant pour. Nevertheless, my sister bought the wine. "Do you have a cellar?" the woman asked. "No." The woman cradled the bottle close to her: "Then how are you going to age the wine?"

the wines

This is the major problem with the wines of Burgundy. In the area itself, the wines are not that expensive (certainly cheaper than they are in the UK or US) but they need plenty of time to age before they are ready to drink. The whites we tasted from the 2010 and 11 vintages are still quite closed, while the reds are intense and surprisingly tannic. If you don't have the patience or wherewithal to age the wines, then it's difficult to justify buying them. However, most wine shops and restaurants do sell wine from past vintages, and I came away from Joseph Drouhin with a 1998 Côte de Beaune for just €35.

A Burgundy tractor

This was an educational and enlightening trip on which I was able to discover further the nuances between the wines of the different villages. Morey-St-Denis produces fragrant but powerful Pinot Noir; Volnay's is delicately appealing yet with surprising depth; while the wines of Santenay, at the bottom of the Côte de Beaune, are intense, spicy, but floral and fruity. (My favourite wine of the trip was Lucien Muzard's 2010 Santenay from the Maladière Premier Cru.) The trip allowed me to taste wines from the 1998 and 2001 vintages, just a short drive away from the vineyards from they which they originated. And, despite its fame, Burgundy can still surprise: some of my favourite wines I tasted came from Maranges, an appellation covering several small villages near Santenay which I had never previously heard of. Whether you're a casual wine lover or a wine geek like me, Burgundy, with its food, its history, and its ambience, will delight.

La Tâche

Beaujolais

The leading figure in Beaujolais is Georges DuBoeuf, who has probably done more to attract attention to Beaujolais over the last 50 years than anyone else. He created and promoted the commercialisation of Beaujolais Nouveau, but also produces serious Cru wine. I met him once and he told me, with a chauvinism only a charming, elderly Frenchman could get away with: "Beaujolais is a woman you flirt with, maybe spend a night with, and then forget about. Burgundy is a woman you fall in love with for the rest of your life but can never afford to marry. Bordeaux is a woman you marry and then divorce." 

Having spent a weekend in Beaujolais I have to disagree with Georges: these are wines I will come back to. Probably the most underappreciated and least understood of all of France's wine regions, Beaujolais is known for simple, fruity, inexpensive wine, most notoriously in the once ubiquitous Beaujolais Nouveau. My recent trip to Beaujolais uncovered a very different side to the region: a scenic, sometimes dramatic, and isolated area sheltering hilltop villages little changed over the years. Dirt tracks lead to dusty tasting rooms and weathered winemakers shyly pouring world-class wines. Quality may vary, but when Beaujolais is good it's as distinctive and memorable as any of France's best wines - and much more affordable.

view from Chiroubles

where is it?

In its rare moments of pretension, Beaujolais calls itself "southern Burgundy" to associate itself with its more illustrious neighbour. Although administratively within Burgundy, Beaujolais couldn't be much more different. The soil is sandy and rocky, dominated by granite. There are vast plains churning out basic Beaujolais, rising to steep, high undulating hills for the quality wines. It's a beautiful region to visit, even if there is little going on: this is an area time has little touched.

Chapelle de la Madone, Fleurie, looks down on hillside vines

the grape

98% of Beaujolais is planted with Gamay, an easy to grow grape that produces fruity, immediate, purple-coloured wine. The vines are planted using the gobelet system - small, stubby vines reaching upwards into a outstretched claw. This allows dense plantings - between 9 and 13,000 vines per hectare which is some of the densest plantings in the world - to encourage high yields. Much maligned, Gamay is always fun but occasionally quite serious.

gobelet vines and granite soils

the appellations

winery inside the church at Juliénas

There are three tiers to Beaujolais. Around 50% of production is the basic Beaujolais AC, which is cheap, fruity, and forgettable. As the vineyards rise from the flat plains, the grapes qualify for Beaujolais-Villages, a significant step up in quality which accounts for 25% of production. The greatest wines come from the ten Crus, in the midst of dramatically situated vineyards. Here, the cheerful fruitiness of Gamay is accompanied by an unexpected structure, concentration, and intensity. Despite being close to each other, each Cru has a distinct profile, from tannic Moulin-à-Vent, floral Fleurie, spicy Juliénas, to ageworthy Morgon. These wines are fruity enough to be drunk young and on their own, but substantial enough to be aged and drunk with hearty, meaty dishes. 

From the 1960s until at least the 1990s, Beaujolais was known for Beaujolais Nouveau, a wine almost straight from the barrel for immediate consumption. The novelty of drinking wine that's only just been fermented created a fashion which led to it being responsible for over 60% of Beaujolais sales in the late 1980s. Unfortunately, Nouveau has dominated perceptions of Beaujolais and it's difficult to convince consumers that the region is capable of more than these simple, fruity wines. Nouveau is still big in Japan. 

the wines

I had a lot of fun tasting Beaujolais over the course of just a couple of days, sampling wines straight from the cask or drinking it with lamb, chicken, salads, and on its own. This is an extremely versatile wine, as evidenced by two informal visits to producers in the Fleurie Cru. Unlike Burgundy, wineries are open to public visits, though you might have to interpret a few wayward signposts to find what you're looking for. 

Domaine de la Madone, Fleurie
Located on the top of a steep hillside besides a small chapel, Jean-Marc Dupres makes wines solely within the Fleurie appellation. There is quite a range, including a fresh, floral, aromatic Viognier (€9; ✪✪✪✪), the only white grape planted in Fleurie. Of the traditional styles of Beaujolais, the Cuvée Speciale (€12.80; ✪✪✪✪✪) from old vines was most noteworthy: fruity, spicy, and intense. Dupres also makes a couple of wines using oak-ageing, also from old vines: the Prestige (€14.50; ✪✪✪✪✪) is aged in old oak barrels, giving it a round, smooth complexity, while the 1889 (€27; ✪✪✪✪✪), made partly from vines planted that year, sees a prolonged 25-day maceration (the norm in Beaujolais is 10-14 days), with two years in new oak, marrying the fruity profile of Gamay with cocoa, chocolate, and coffee from the oak.

Clos de la Roillette, Fleurie
At the bottom of a dirt track outside the village of Fleurie, we were hosted by winemaker Alain Coudert's shy, softly-spoken son in a cellar that probably hadn't been cleaned in several decades. Once again, the most interesting wines were from old vines, this time planted in the 1930s. The Cuvée Tardive (c.€15; ✪✪✪✪✪) was attractive, complex, and, with gripping tannins and high acidity, ageworthy. Likewise with the Griffe de Marquis, which I tasted from the 2013, 2012, and 2007 vintages. The Marque Déposée 2007 (✪✪✪✪✪✪) was a magnificent example of how Beaujolais can defy preconceptions: a gamey, meaty, animal nose, yet remarkably fresh on the palate with high acidity and a long, fresh, spicy finish.

Where else in the world can you leave a tasting room with a bottle of quality wine that you can drink later that evening or age for a few years - and for just €7.20, as we did with Clos de la Roilette's Brouilly (✪✪✪✪)? I know of no other region where such outstanding wines retail at such affordable prices.

At its best, Beaujolais is unassuming rather than simple. Too unassuming perhaps: Beaujolais needs to assert its quality more confidently to change people's perceptions of the wines. It could do with developing a proper tourist infrastructure, to help visitors explore this beautiful region - even at the cost of opening up its timeless nature to the twenty-first century. As it is, enjoy it while it's still vastly underappreciated.