Bewildered in Burgundy

Before coming to France for Wine Education, I always confused Bordeaux and Burgundy. I mean, they both start with a B and they are known for French wine. Having now visited both, I will never confuse them again…but I believe I will forever remain utterly flummoxed by Burgundy.

The first sign of bewilderment was arriving at the train station in Beaune, our home base town. Rolling our suitcases through a tunnel to exit the station, we walked between two walls of maps, one on either side. They showed the villages and appellations of Burgundy. The tunnel wasn’t short.

We are getting quite familiar with train stations
of all sizes, popularities, and offerings of 
elevators (or not).

We spent two days in Beaune – which is sort of north central of the Burgundy area that runs north-south. Burgundy – again a region, not a town – is a string of hilly ridges to the west of a large flat plain. It is definitely wine county, as vineyards are everywhere. There are little rivers here and there that flow to bigger ones, but for the most part the area is grapey green hills and flat pastures.

Not the best map but it
was the best we found that wasn't
completely overrun with details.
Chablis at the top, Beaune in the middle, 
vineyards straight down the line (ridge).

Looking west towards the Burgundy ridge. Also note
the red poppies! I was told they only last about 2-3 weeks, 
so we just happen to be here at the perfect time to see them!

My landscape descriptions are entirely based on my view from the train. Because once stationed in Beaune, we did not leave the confines of what is considered the historical wine heart of Burgundy. So while I feel like I have a pretty good handle on Beaune, I don’t really feel like I’ve seen much of Burgundy. And Beaune, while lovely, also has a confined, restricted feel to it. That’s because we spent half of our visit walking around the old part of the city which is walled and surrounded by a moat. And the other half was spent in a series of wine caves under the old city’s streets.

A stone depiction of the old city of Beaune. Our hotel was 
on the outside of the wall; our tours and tasting were
within the walled city and below.

Caves are a big thing in Beaune. This time – unlike in Champagne where they dug the caves for limestone and then repurposed them for wine stuff – the caves were dug with the full intention of providing wine storage. There are kilometers and kilometers of wine caves throughout Beaune. Our first night, we got to have dinner in one! While lovely and atmospheric, it was also a little stuffy. Both in terms of air circulation and service.

The restaurant's caves were suprisingly
well lit. The couple next to us was from
Atlanta. And, we suspect, on their
honeymoon.

I decided to try escargots. I made it 
through 3 of them before deciding I
could not handle any more. Weird 
texture but the worst part was the 
spinach and the gritty crunch of
either the hazelnuts or the snail.

We had a walking tour of Beaune where we learned about the area’s history and its annual huge auction of brand-new wine that benefits a big hospital in the area.

Note the man's head at the bottom of 
the window. He was bringing wine
stock up from the cave cellars below
the restaurant. 

Old-timey wine press used in Beaune
back in the monk days.

Wine bottle sculpture just across
from the kiddie carousel that seems
to be a required attraction in every French town

We also wandered into a beautifully simple church (I learned the difference between a cathedral and a church is whether or not the area’s archbishop hangs out there). The church’s architecture (no archbishop) was supposedly Gothic, but it felt much more understated and approachable. The good Quaker that I am, I was thoroughly appreciating the stunning simplicity. And then, the experience became holy.

Entrance to the Basilique Notre-Dame
de Beaune, completed in the 13th
Century

Wafting from above us but filling the entire space with the purity of the human voice came the pleadings of an angel. Well, ok, she was just a young woman in her 30s who was clearly musically gifted and trained, but I was utterly mesmerized by her voice as she sang something in French. I would have followed her voice anywhere like a devoted lamb to continue listening. The church was mostly empty except for Rob, me, our tour guide, and a couple of folks assisting with the practice for an upcoming performance. Goosebumps grew as I listened to her. Tears welled as I felt the most centered and present and connected that I have ever felt in a European church or cathedral. The moment was so fleeting. Much like totality in the eclipse, I wanted to stay in it for a lifetime. Much like totality, I got the sense I was glimpsing something sacred and holy. So many goosebumps.

Click here to watch (but really to listen) to the video

Although the video’s quality doesn’t do it justice, I am so grateful I had the presence of mind to capture a bit of the experience. It took me a bit of time to focus back on my earthly reality and mentally rejoin our tour. Wow, just wow. Best Church Experience as a Tourist Ever.

Back to our tour.

We did learn a little about wine as we wandered. For example, many producers are still in old Beaune – including many with some of the most expensive wines on the planet – but most have moved their productions to the outskirts of town.

We also learned more about the concept of a wine négociant. We first heard the term while in Bordeaux, but it is an active part of the wine business in Burgundy. Basically, a négociant is a wine trader or broker. They have lots of money and buy grapes or juice or fermented wine and then do the rest of the production to end up with bottled wine under their own label. Basically, they let the farmers and growers worry about the weather and soil and harvests and achy backs. The négociant steps into the process once there is fruit or fruit juice to play with and takes it from there. A couple famous wine négociants you might have heard of if you wander the wine aisles in the United States are Maison Louis Jadot and Maison Joseph Drouhin.

Louis Jadot's place

After lunch of a shared baguette sandwich – I’m getting pretty good at ordering simple meals entirely in French! – we walked to the stately and somewhat imposing Maison Patriarche – a wine négociant with nearly 250 years of history in Burgundy. We spent almost 3 hours in its extensive wine caves, seeing endless rows of dusty bottles organized and categorized via chalkboards and imprinted corks.

Mireille guided us through the dimly lit caves under the watchful eye of many security cameras. We learned how big and powerful and important Patriarche is. We eventually set up camp in a private cave of sorts, decorated with a few orienting maps, a wooden sculpture of Bacchus (the God of Wine), and a wine barrel table arranged with 3 glasses and 6 bottles of wine. Our Official Burgundy Wine Class was about to begin!

It was hard to get good photos in the caves

It was an intense few hours of many scribbled notes, language clarifications, map consultations, swirling, smelling, tasting, spitting (her) and dumping (us). (As a fun sidenote, wine pros have a weirdly elegant way of spitting out their wine when simply tasting it so as not to get drunk and/or lose their senses. I have not figured out how to do this without either looking like a redneck spitting out chew or dribbling wine down my chin. So, I dump out surplus wine in the provided bucket – or nonchalantly water plants or other nearby vegetation if no bucket is provided.) Here’s my best condensed summary of what we learned.

We ended up using the flashlights on our cell phones
to try to read the maps. 

Burgundy is known for just two grapes – a white and a red. The white grape is Chardonnay; the red grape is Pinot Noir. There is no blending. The only blending that might happen is of the same grape varietal from different villages within Burgundy.

Burgundy wines make up only about 6% of France’s wine production. Each vineyard (or plot) is pretty small, averaging only about 20 acres each with some as small as only 2 acres.

Burgundy is ALL about geography. There are about 100 different appellations within the area, 44 villages, and about 1250 different smaller areas that people care a lot about called “climats” (basically a vineyard). People are VERY particular about where their Burgundy wine comes from. They want to know not just the name of the négociant, but the village where the grapes were grown and, if possible, the specific vineyard or plot of land (climat). Hence the maps.

Our souvenir from Burgundy. We plan
to tote it along whenever we go shopping
for French wines.

Chablis is a town in Burgundy! It is at the north and produces almost only white wines. Chablis wine (again, made from Chardonnay grapes) is known to be minerally and acidic. Locals didn’t talk about it much. I got the sense they were a little embarrassed by it, perhaps knowing that there is something of a “Mrs. Roper drinking Chablis at the Regal Beagle” vibe to it.

People also care about a classification system that ranks wine according to “cru.” Bordeaux also has classification systems – one for the left bank and one for the right bank. Of course, just to keep everyone confused and to make sure wine people in the know feel superior, the three different classification systems have similar names but different orders and meanings.  Here’s what I’ve gleaned:

Burgundy – classifications are based on geography. The vineyards in the best locations – usually higher on hills and slopes – have the highest classifications. If the grapes come from a variety of vineyards within a village, they will get the less-impressive “Village” classification. If the wine is just a hodgepodge of grapes from different villages within Burgundy, the classification is the verging-on-embarrassing and highly general “Bourgogne” or “Burgundy” classification.

Burgundy classifications listed in order from best to worst:

• Grand Cru
• Premier Cru
• Village
• Region (i.e. Burgundy or Bourgogne)

Bordeaux Left Bank (Médoc) – the classification system is based on a directive in 1855 by Napoleon to rank all the wines of the area based on price and quality. So it is all about the winery’s name, price, and history – and the list hasn’t changed.

Bordeaux Left Bank classifications listed in order from best to worst:

• Premier Cru
• 2^nd Cru (Deuxième) 
• 3^rd Cru (Troisième)
• 4^th Cru (Quartrième)
• 5^th Cru (Cinquième)

Bordeaux Right Bank (Saint-Émilion) – the classification system is based on a ranking of area wines based on quality. The ranking is made every 10 years.

Bordeaux Right Bank classifications listed in order from best to worst:

• Premier Grand Cru Classé A
• Premier Grand Cru Classé B
• Grand Cru 
• Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Back to Burgundy...

Because different négociants buy different grapes from different growers, the same vineyard might provide grapes (and therefore the resulting wine) to a bunch of different wineries. So with Burgundy wines, it seems to be much more important that you know what vineyards you like instead of which producer. Which means you need to go wine shopping with a pretty detailed map of Burgundy. And we haven’t even talked about how flavors can change wildly from year to year based on weather and such, lending a whole other variable to this overwhelming wine soup.

And this is where the bewilderment set in.

As I tried super hard to wrap my brain around this totally different and microscopic approach to wine, I realized that a serious wine person could spend a lifetime trying to pick apart Burgundy wines – and the qualities, flavors, vintage, and character of each village and vineyard – and never get a handle on it. Truly, trying to evaluate each food truck in the Portland metro would be easier and saner.

As for the wines themselves, while I thought I would have an easier time because it’s just Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, the zillions of permutations available with variable soil, climate, elevation, and winemaking artistry means these two grapes – which I thought I knew pretty well – can yield remarkably different wines, even from the same acreage. Oh, my head! And taste buds!

We generally liked the Burgundy wines that we tasted. Following the theme we are finding, the French versions of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are MUCH more fun and interesting and layered than what we have had in the United States. There’s more variability of flavors, more things to understand, more things to be confused by, more smells to try to identify, just a lot more involved in general.

Mireille told us that generally speaking, Burgundy Chardonnays (“White Burgundy”) typically have apricot flavors, while Burgundy Pinot Noirs (“Red Burgundy”) are known to have black licorice and caramel flavors. Having tried about a dozen Burgundy wines during our visit, we maybe agree? Among the descriptions we had as we sampled along:  For whites – oak, lemon, macaroon, mustard smell, vanilla smell, fruity apple-flavored lemonade with pie crust.  For reds – Craisins, white pepper, spicy, buttered cherries, toasted gingerbread man, caramel, sherry, chocolate, leather shoes.

An interesting side note to our cave tasting was the conditions under which we were sampling the fancy wines (later revealed to cost between $50 and $235 per bottle). While full of atmosphere and romanticism, the stark reality was that we were in a dark, cold cave (my nose was running by the time we exited) that at times smelled like urine because, well, the streets of Beaune were right above us (we saw some startling evidence that there are just not enough conveniently located public restrooms). So wine colors were hard to detect and wine smells were a jumble. Needless to say, we were not tempted to break our No Wine Purchases rule at the fancypants Maison Patriarche.

While I can definitely say I have been to Burgundy, I am nowhere close to being able to say I understand it. And at the current prices (apparently prices spiked big time after a 2016 frost and haven’t come down), I am not sure how much exploring I will do.

With hopes of warmer weather and the ability to finally wear a dress and a pair of shorts I’ve been lugging around for two weeks, our next stop is the Northern Rhone Valley!  Stay tuned!

Still covered in goosebumps and lost in
the wonder of that young woman's voice