The wine country of Burgundy

We awoke to a sunny morning in Paris and headed southeast in our rental car for a few days in Burgundy. This is the wine country famous for the Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs and we were anxious to do a little wine-tasting! Before seeing the vineyards, however, we kept seeing seas of brilliant yellow blooms everywhere. Since we were headed towards Dijon, we thought, "WOW! Look at all the mustard!" Wrong! We later found out that, no, France imports nearly 90% of their mustard seeds from Canada now, and these were NOT mustard fields. They were "colza" plants, which give us canola oil!



We stopped in the town of Dijon and walked the medieval streets at the core of the city....

.....and stopped for a bit in Beaune, which is the heart of the Burgundy wine country. We drove a few more kilometers to our destination, Meursault, a village of about 1,600 people, and found our little "gite" that we had booked on the internet. This time we were not in a chateau or manor house, but a charming village home that was over 250 years old, owned by two wine-makers, with a wine-cellar in the basement below! We had the whole house, with kitchen on the main level, a walk-up to living room, a few more steps up to a bedroom, and another few steps to another bedroom. A true townhouse from centuries gone-by! The wines from the owner were waiting for us to try...and of course, we obliged!

The owner of this house has a small, but well-known, wine business and took us into his cellar to taste some of the wines from last fall's harvest, both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (Burgundy).

To contrast that, we toured a large winery, the Chateau de Mersault, a restored chateau from the 11th century, and toured the vast cellars beneath the chateau dating from the 14th century. This was a maze of halls and rooms filled with barrels, sheltering some 800,000 bottles!

So that you don't think that tasting wine was all we did, we also ATE! The first night, after a long drive and sharing a bottle of wine, we decided to walk to the restaurant that was recommended to us. We headed out of the little town and walked the a small road.......and walked......and walked. Three kilometers later, tired and starving, we found it. However it was full....and we were told that everything around Meursault was full! We started our trek back, but found a lovely small restaurant, found a table, and enjoyed a tasty bowl of boeuf bourguignon, of course!

The weather for our 4 days in Burgundy was absolutely perfect with blue skies, temperatures in the 70's (20's centigrade) and no rain. We did a lot of walking, either to get our pastries in the village in the morning, or the vineyards in the afternoon to view the beautiful countryside. We also drove the road from north to south, through a number of small villages, each famous for their particular regional wine. Life in a small town in Burgundy is quiet, relaxing, and rewarding.

Views of the town of Meursault




The signature of Burgundy, the roof made of multi-colored clay tiles.......

.......and dotted with views like this! This area is on the "wishlist" for the fall, when the vines are ripe and the fields of grapes ready for the harvest. We would love to come back!