Jaw-dropping Complexity
I meet him in his hotel-restaurant and as we walk to his winery, he explains how complex the winemaking process is in the Côte d’Or. “We have 1,247 different soils [each one constitutes the ‘climat‘ or parcel], and each one has a different taste, and name of wine,” says Olivier as my jaw drops at the sheer scale and complexity of the wines here. “Every parcel is different, because of the soil; every vintage is different because of the weather; and every winemaker has his own technique.”
A quick tour of the winery shows how carefully they treat the different wines, making sure to keep them separate. Later, in the restaurant, I get a better understanding of what Olivier means about `terroir‘. On each table, there is a large glass jar (with a candle perched on the lid) which contains a pile of soil. An unorthodox table decoration perhaps, but when you look around the room and see the colours, textures and compositions of the soil in each of the jars, and realise that all 1,247 ‘climats‘ would appear slightly different (all within a 50-kilometre stretch of land), the mind boggles.
“I have nine jars, I think, but I could have 82!” says Olivier. “A vine is the same everywhere, but the only difference between the wines is the soil. When you’re on the hill, the root can be 40 or 50 metres down because the vines are trying to find the water table again. When you’re on the flat part, they are one metre. The best wines are on the hill. Why? Because the root has to go very deep. Here, we have clay and limestone; clay gives the wine richness, but limestone gives the wine finesse, elegance and complexity, and the land on the hills is also limestone.”
Lunch at the restaurant brings together six of his wines with a simple but delicious menu, and the sommelier Ingrid talks me through them two by two, each course being matched to a Premier Cru and a Grand Cru vintage. The courses include a chicken dish, which is a nod to the region’s other great export: Dijon mustard.
Once back in Beaune, among the wine boutiques, bars and restaurants, a rather unusual museum is dedicated to this condiment. Although a mustard museum wouldn’t ordinarily appeal, La Moutarderie Edmond Fallot presents the local delicacy in a fascinating way. You learn about its history in the region, and even get the chance to grind some seeds and create your own mustard. The shop, meanwhile, has beautiful jars that are ideal as gifts or souvenirs.
Of course, a trip to Burgundy wouldn’t be complete without taking a few bottles of the local wine home, and while the Joseph Drouhin and Olivier Leflaive wines were beautiful, the prices weren’t quite appropriate for Saturday night quaffing. I venture, therefore, to the Cook’s Atelier, a beautiful kitchen and wine shop run by mother-and-daughter team Marjorie Taylor and Kendall Smith Franchini, who also offers cookery classes and culinary tours of Beaune. Wines are selected according to their tastes, rather than a loyalty to a particular négociant or domaine, and at reasonable prices, there is plenty of independently chosen wines to take home for easy drinking.
Chatting to the American expats gives me an appetite to return, but more for Beaune’s gastronomy: “There’s a great food scene here and people are passionate about local producers,” says Marjorie, who ran a restaurant and cookery school in Arizona before upping sticks to join Kendall in France. They show me the upper floors of the bright and welcoming space, where they run the cookery school and offer lunch after the tours.
“In the morning, we go to the market, where the local producers gather, so you get to meet the cheesemaker or the organic farmer. Then we come back to the atelier and talk about the menu, and how to figure that out from what we have,” Marjorie explains. “It’s usually seven courses, with wine pairings. We’ve dubbed it the long French lunch!”
The experience sounds divine, and so with sensational food on offer, some friendly instructors to tell me how to cook it and thousands more wine vintages to taste, I can tell it won’t be long before I’m back in Beaune.
