We have taken longer trips to France’s Burgundy region, touring the Hospices de Beaune, tasting our way through Caves des Cordeliers and experiencing pre-scheduled tastings at wineries. This time, after a morning drive from Mulhouse (at the base of the Alsace Wine Road), we had far less time. We arrived in Beaune France at noon and had to catch a 7:00 Paris train in Dijon. This time we didn’t have any specific plans and no reservations.

Beaune France

We began with a wonderful, traditional Burgundian three-course lunch at Beaune’s Le Caveau des Arches. We started with escargot and an eggs timbale with mushrooms in a red wine sauce. Then came a steak tartare and beef Bourguignon. We finished with three local cow’s milk cheeses: Petite Vougeot, Amour de Nuit, and Epoisse. We “washed this all down” with a bottle of 2008 Chanson Cotes de Nuits Village. Yum.

After this lovely lunch, we took a brief walk through Beaune’s historic Old Town, renewing memories from previous trips.

A Not-So Leisurely Drive through Cotes de Nuits

We got back into our car and drove up the A6 Expressway to the town of Nuits-St-George and then drove the rest of the way to Dijon along Rt. N74, the section of the “Route des Grands Cru” that runs the length of Cote de Nuits, our favorite Burgundy region.

After finding which wineries were open for tasting during a very rainy harvest week, we selected one winery in each of four towns: Vouget, Morey-St-Denis, Gevrey-Chambertin and Marsannay. We ended up buying three red wines:

• 2009 Vosne-Romanee “Aux Reas”single vineyard”;
• 2010 Domaine Alain Jeanard Morey-St-Denis 1st Cur; and
• 2009 Domaine Michel Magnien Monopole Marsannay.

That, combined with dropping off our car and getting to the Dijon train station to catch a train to Paris took up every minute of our all-too-short afternoon. On the train, we drank the Marsannay, along with the small wheel of Munster cheese that we picked up in Alsace and saved the other two bottles for appropriate evenings in the city.