Burgundy by bike, France
South African law student in London, wine lover André Pretorius chose a saddle on which to get around Burgundy - a cycling tour of one of the greatest wine regions in the world. and he doesn't even own a bike . .
Through the ancient gateway I found the rope to ring the bell. I tugged at it and dimly heard the peals in the stone tower. Silence followed. I had been warned that Madame Trem-o-lieres was very old and might not respond immediately. Should I ring again… But then a key turned and she appeared from behind the heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs: the benign granny from fairy tale books.
Her silver-grey hair was bound in a neat bun and her portly figure was hung with an old knitted cardigan. With a beautiful French accent she invited me up the stairs and, once inside, guided me through the rooms of her castle, her soft-spoken commentary embracing the history of the place and a little philosophy.
The fortress-cum-manor house dates from the 10th century, and in the dining room she pointed at a beam that took 70 years to manufacture. "Now it is still here, but we cannot wait that long anymore for anything. We call that progress…"
Then out onto the balcony overlooking the vineyards. And finally onto the fruits of the vine in her cellar - I could taste her "common" wine, but not the more precious specimens.
The short visit to the loveable Mme Tremolieres and her Château de Gevrey-Chambertin was a sniff of the wonderfully complex Burgundian bouquet with its aromas of religion, wine, ancient civilisation and wonderful human warmth.
Gevrey-Chambertin is the northernmost of the great wine villages of Côte d'Or (the "Golden Slope" south of Dijon), reached on the second day of my expedition, having flown to Lyon, hired a bicycle and taken a north-bound train to Dijon the day before.
Cycling down the gently sloping Route des Grand Crus with the east-facing Côte on my right, the landscape was a kaleidoscope of browns, with green buds starting to appear on the vines. The Côte d'Or divides into the northern Côte de Nuits and the southern Côte de Beaune. Beyond that lies the Côte Chalonnais, the Côte Maconnais and eventually Beaujolais. But the Côte d'Or is the most famous and has all the Grand Cru vineyards: the names of its villages alone inspire awe in wine aficionados Morey-St Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, Vosne-Romanée, Aloxe-Corton, Puligny-Montrachet, amongst others - each name attached to that of each commune's most famous vineyard (hence the hyphenation).
The Côte d'Or is just 60km long, but it produces a bewildering array of wine styles from just two grape varieties: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The communes of Nuits-St Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin, for example, produce heavy, tannic red wines that need a lot of bottle-ageing to reach their full potential. In contrast, the reds from Chambolle-Musigny are elegant and feminine. From the two most famous white Grand Cru vineyards, Le Montrachet and Corton-Charlemagne, come rich, fruity wines that reach their golden apogee after 10 years.
These names meant little to me before I started reading in preparation for my trip, and knowing them is useless unless you understand the Byzantine classification system. In extremely simplified form, there are four levels of wine into which each vineyard in the region is classified. In ascending order of quality, these appellations are Bourgogne Regionale AC, individual Village ACs, Premier Crus and Grand Crus.
In a wine shop in Vosne-Romanée, I noticed that one shelf of bottles was locked behind iron bars. On closer inspection, the labels revealed Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, Echezeaux… This was not a paranoid wine merchant: elsewhere I found the same bottles on sale, and when I touched one, an alarm sounded! With a price tag of FF30 000 (R28 850) a bottle for the 1971 vintage (FF22 000 for 1995), Romanée-Conti is worth protecting.
Such a legendary plot of earth calls for a pilgrimage. So I consulted my map and cycled up the appointed hill above Vosne-Romanée. I approached a man hunched over knee-high vines beginning to sprout their golden-green buds. "Romanée-Conti?" I enquired. He rose slowly, pushed his cap back and gestured around him with both arms. This was it then: one of the world's most prized vineyards. So prized that at the start of the season the soil washed down by the rains is carried back up to the top.
There seems little to impress, only small vines on a gentle slope, guarded by a stone cross - the key to the origins of the Burgundian wine industry. Establishment of the walled vineyards (clos) and the vinification methods was the work of the men of God. Romans, Gauls and perhaps even ancient Celts had dabbled in wine here, but it was the Cistercian monks of Citeaux and the Benedictines of Cluny that bequeathed Burgundy its most precious possession. They started the classification and built underground cellars that remain to this day in their cathedral-like splendour. Stone crosses similar to that at Romanée-Conti dot the vineyards. Is it coincidence that there seems to be more of them in Vosne-Romanée, where most of the greatest Burgundies come from, than in any other commune?
But seeing vineyards and admiring Cistercian cellars were not sufficient reasons to take a tent and a bicycle to Burgundy for a week. I had come to taste these objects as a balm for my aching leg muscles.
As a general rule with many exceptions, domaine-bottled wines are better than those of négociants. The best places to taste are those where the winemaker owns parcels in several different vineyards and communes. That way you can compare the taste changes upwards through the hierarchy of wines and grow to appreciate that two wines made in the same way by the same person from the same grape can taste different, because they are from different vineyards.
Surprisingly, the area's wine-growers proved singularly unprepared for tasting visitors. Of course, there were those who advertised themselves ostentatiously, but a rule of thumb soon emerged: the quality of the wine and the tasting experience was inversely proportionate to the size of the advertising signs.
Nowhere is this clearer than at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, where there's no more than a small black-and-white label on a buzzer. When I finally found it (in town, away from the vineyard), I pressed the button in hope more than expectation. The sales manager greeted me, impressed inasmuch as he was a cyclist himself. Yet, in spite of our shared interest, there would be no tasting here. After all, he reminded me, whereas Bordeaux's famous Château Petrus produces some 50 000 bottles a year; Romanée-Conti yields only around 5 000.
Elsewhere I had better luck. On the first day I called ahead to Domaine Duroche in Gevrey-Chambertin and was met at the gate by Giles Duroche, a jovial middle-aged man in a blue overall and slip-ons. April is a hectic time in the vineyards and he was a busy man, but he escorted me down to his cellar, explaining that he could not open bottles for just one person but that I could taste his three Grand Cru wines from the barrel. When I took my leave of M Duroche, my panniers were being weighed down by a Chambertin-Clos de Beze 1996 Grand Cru. I was already buying wine I had resolved not to (there's not much 'boot' space on a bike).
In Nuits St George, the border between the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune, I had an exceptional tasting. The firm of Faiveley has combined the roles of domaine and négociant for five generations and they produce a vast range of extremely good wines from all over Burgundy. They are generally not open to the public, but my nationality proved an asset: the export manager expressed his desire - frustrated so far - to export his wines to South Africa. He allowed me to join a tasting for some Australian wine merchants: the highlight was a white 1994 Premier Cru from Meursault further south, its richness and opulence a few steps up from mere Chardonnay. The third day started badly - the weather was foul. But the tasting was getting better… It had rained all night, my tent was damp and by lunch, the rain was still bucketing down. I spent the morning under cover at the Hospice de Beaune and some wine shops, and then cycled south in the rain to Puligny-Montrachet. Domaine Olivier Leflaive makes some of the best white wines in Burgundy and he offers tasting lunches.
Olivier Leflaive is just one of the domaines that offer such good-value lunches. Another I came across was Comte Philippe Sennard (in Aloxe-Corton). Prices range between FF200 and FF300 (R190 to R290) for four courses and wine.
This did not quite fit my budget, but the lively sommelier at Olivier Leflaive, Pascal Wagner, said I could drop by at 4pm. When I turned up, Pascal, who spoke good English, still had one table of slightly tipsy American diners. Pointing at them he told me: "I don't have time to attend to you now, but there are the bottles and glasses - help yourself." An instruction to savour: there were some 20 bottles of mainly Premier Cru white wines for the taking. The rain was clearing and my mood was given a Premier Cru lift!
While I amused myself with this first-class entertainment, Pascal opened a bottle of Corton-Charlemagne (a famous white Grand Cru, for those who don't know), which drew gasps from the Americans. "But," he said, "this is not even the best yet. The best is Le Montrachet. To die without ever having tasted that, is like dying without ever having had sex." Perhaps the secret reason why it was the monks who perfected wine-making here - a vinous substitute for what they had forsworn. Certainly the abandon with which one lunch guest flung herself at the bottle suggested a certain monk-like deprivation.
Then M Leflaive himself arrived and greeted all present with a warm handshake, as if we were all lifetime friends. His bonhomie reflected another facet of Burgundy, a land where humour is fuelled by the potent wines. When Burgundians are happy, you know it - if they are not, you will know too.
After five days on the bicycle, having left the Côte d'Or behind, I arrived at Creches-sur-Saone on the edges of the Beaujolais and Maconnais regions. I had come all the way from Santenay at the southern tip of the Côte d'Or, through Mercurey, Givry and Buxy in the Côte Chalonnais. In Creches I stopped to ask directions to the campsite from a couple pottering in their garden. They spoke no English, but managed to convey that there was indeed a campsite that opens annually on May 1st. It was April 30th and after 6pm on a Sunday afternoon… Were there any chambre d'hotes? Non. I said that I would seek out one of the terrible roadside chain-hotels, but I must have cut a miserable figure: as I set off they called me back and demanded I stay the night. Their generosity was the perfect welcome to a part of Burgundy that has an altogether more southern European feel to it.
South-west of the town of Macon the vines of the Maconnais and Beaujolais carpet the valleys. Here the gentle, east-facing slope of the Côte d'Or gives way to more broken geography. Under the glare of the spectacular Rock of Solutre, the Maconnais produces two fine white wines - Pouilly-Fuisse and St Verand. The Maconnais vineyards are indistinguishable in places from those of the northern Beaujolais Crus with their Gamay grapes.
My trip was coming to an end and I relented on the serious wine-tasting - this was a place to have more relaxed fun. Wines are not as expensive, the villages are less aware of their own importance in the wine universe and the landscape is more exciting than the uniform Côte d'Or. In St Amour - the northernmost of nine Beaujolais Cru villages - I imbibed the quintessential St Valentine's Day wine before setting out over the hills to St Verand, Solutre, Fuisse and Pouilly, drinking as far as I went.
In these parts the structure of the industry differs from that on the Côte d'Or. Over some of his very good white wine, Pascal Rollet in Pouilly explained the local system of which he is part. He is a "vigneron", meaning that his house and vineyards were given to him by a landowner to cultivate. He tends the vines and makes the wine, but half of each vintage belongs to the owner of the property. This quaint throw-back to feudalism gives southern Burgundy a wholly different soul to the north. At most houses you need to knock, and chances are that the housewife will emerge in her apron to take you into the cellar for a tasting.
The towns themselves, spread among the vine-covered hills, complement this homeliness. Ochre-coloured houses with southern-tiled roofs are clustered around little Romanesque churches. Walls are gently decaying, plaster is falling off, steep and narrow streets are in mild disrepair, some houses are positively dilapidated. The decay is the visual equivalent of the smell of fermenting wine: a noble decadence.
Over lunch-time - anything from noon till 3pm - the towns become ghost villages. Not a soul stirs; even the flies appear too lazy to move in the midday heat. Evidence of life revolves around some local bar or restaurant. By now all that wine-tasting was taking its toll and I pulled up my bike at the Auberge la Vigne Blanche in Fuisse: meals are invariably hearty in Burgundy, and involve more wine. This is the home of boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin, among others.
At the auberge about 10 men were making the most of their day off with beer and wine on the restaurant's terrace. A rather coquettish waitress was serving them to general acclaim and loud banter. Even for them, the sun became a bit much and they withdrew inside for their meal. I was left on the terrace with a feast for the senses: glorious smells drifting from the kitchen, the beautiful noise of happy people, a deserted street of autumnal colours under a searing blue sky, plus great food and wine.
With my bicycle beckoning, the next mountain on the horizon and the food neutralising the wine, realism set in. The long-term cost of the little jaunt was far more than the all-too-many bottles of wine I acquired along the way: I had developed a taste for things I cannot afford.
The writer Hillaire Belloc also knew the hypnotic effect of Burgundy and its great wines. He once said in a speech: "When that this too, too solid flesh shall melt and I am called before my Heavenly Father, I shall say to him: Sir, I can't remember the name of the village and I don't remember the name of the girl, but the wine was Chambertin." Perhaps he was shown some understanding when that moment came - wine lies at the root of all that is Burgundy. And that is the splendid legacy of the medieval men of God.
In a wine shop in Vosne-Romanée, I noticed that one shelf of bottles was locked behind iron bars. On closer inspection, the labels revealed Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, Echezeaux… This was not a paranoid wine merchant: elsewhere I found the same bottles on sale, and when I touched one, an alarm sounded! With a price tag of FF30 000 (R28 850) a bottle for the 1971 vintage (FF22 000 for 1995), Romanée-Conti is worth protecting.
Such a legendary plot of earth calls for a pilgrimage. So I consulted my map and cycled up the appointed hill above Vosne-Romanée. I approached a man hunched over knee-high vines beginning to sprout their golden-green buds. "Romanée-Conti?" I enquired. He rose slowly, pushed his cap back and gestured around him with both arms. This was it then: one of the world's most prized vineyards. So prized that at the start of the season the soil washed down by the rains is carried back up to the top.
There seems little to impress, only small vines on a gentle slope, guarded by a stone cross - the key to the origins of the Burgundian wine industry. Establishment of the walled vineyards (clos) and the vinification methods was the work of the men of God. Romans, Gauls and perhaps even ancient Celts had dabbled in wine here, but it was the Cistercian monks of Citeaux and the Benedictines of Cluny that bequeathed Burgundy its most precious possession. They started the classification and built underground cellars that remain to this day in their cathedral-like splendour. Stone crosses similar to that at Romanée-Conti dot the vineyards. Is it coincidence that there seems to be more of them in Vosne-Romanée, where most of the greatest Burgundies come from, than in any other commune?
But seeing vineyards and admiring Cistercian cellars were not sufficient reasons to take a tent and a bicycle to Burgundy for a week. I had come to taste these objects as a balm for my aching leg muscles.
As a general rule with many exceptions, domaine-bottled wines are better than those of négociants. The best places to taste are those where the winemaker owns parcels in several different vineyards and communes. That way you can compare the taste changes upwards through the hierarchy of wines and grow to appreciate that two wines made in the same way by the same person from the same grape can taste different, because they are from different vineyards.
Surprisingly, the area's wine-growers proved singularly unprepared for tasting visitors. Of course, there were those who advertised themselves ostentatiously, but a rule of thumb soon emerged: the quality of the wine and the tasting experience was inversely proportionate to the size of the advertising signs.
Nowhere is this clearer than at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, where there's no more than a small black-and-white label on a buzzer. When I finally found it (in town, away from the vineyard), I pressed the button in hope more than expectation. The sales manager greeted me, impressed inasmuch as he was a cyclist himself. Yet, in spite of our shared interest, there would be no tasting here. After all, he reminded me, whereas Bordeaux's famous Château Petrus produces some 50 000 bottles a year; Romanée-Conti yields only around 5 000.
Elsewhere I had better luck. On the first day I called ahead to Domaine Duroche in Gevrey-Chambertin and was met at the gate by Giles Duroche, a jovial middle-aged man in a blue overall and slip-ons. April is a hectic time in the vineyards and he was a busy man, but he escorted me down to his cellar, explaining that he could not open bottles for just one person but that I could taste his three Grand Cru wines from the barrel. When I took my leave of M Duroche, my panniers were being weighed down by a Chambertin-Clos de Beze 1996 Grand Cru. I was already buying wine I had resolved not to (there's not much 'boot' space on a bike).
In Nuits St George, the border between the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune, I had an exceptional tasting. The firm of Faiveley has combined the roles of domaine and négociant for five generations and they produce a vast range of extremely good wines from all over Burgundy. They are generally not open to the public, but my nationality proved an asset: the export manager expressed his desire - frustrated so far - to export his wines to South Africa. He allowed me to join a tasting for some Australian wine merchants: the highlight was a white 1994 Premier Cru from Meursault further south, its richness and opulence a few steps up from mere Chardonnay. The third day started badly - the weather was foul. But the tasting was getting better… It had rained all night, my tent was damp and by lunch, the rain was still bucketing down. I spent the morning under cover at the Hospice de Beaune and some wine shops, and then cycled south in the rain to Puligny-Montrachet. Domaine Olivier Leflaive makes some of the best white wines in Burgundy and he offers tasting lunches.
Olivier Leflaive is just one of the domaines that offer such good-value lunches. Another I came across was Comte Philippe Sennard (in Aloxe-Corton). Prices range between FF200 and FF300 (R190 to R290) for four courses and wine.
This did not quite fit my budget, but the lively sommelier at Olivier Leflaive, Pascal Wagner, said I could drop by at 4pm. When I turned up, Pascal, who spoke good English, still had one table of slightly tipsy American diners. Pointing at them he told me: "I don't have time to attend to you now, but there are the bottles and glasses - help yourself." An instruction to savour: there were some 20 bottles of mainly Premier Cru white wines for the taking. The rain was clearing and my mood was given a Premier Cru lift!
While I amused myself with this first-class entertainment, Pascal opened a bottle of Corton-Charlemagne (a famous white Grand Cru, for those who don't know), which drew gasps from the Americans. "But," he said, "this is not even the best yet. The best is Le Montrachet. To die without ever having tasted that, is like dying without ever having had sex." Perhaps the secret reason why it was the monks who perfected wine-making here - a vinous substitute for what they had forsworn. Certainly the abandon with which one lunch guest flung herself at the bottle suggested a certain monk-like deprivation.
Then M Leflaive himself arrived and greeted all present with a warm handshake, as if we were all lifetime friends. His bonhomie reflected another facet of Burgundy, a land where humour is fuelled by the potent wines. When Burgundians are happy, you know it - if they are not, you will know too.
After five days on the bicycle, having left the Côte d'Or behind, I arrived at Creches-sur-Saone on the edges of the Beaujolais and Maconnais regions. I had come all the way from Santenay at the southern tip of the Côte d'Or, through Mercurey, Givry and Buxy in the Côte Chalonnais. In Creches I stopped to ask directions to the campsite from a couple pottering in their garden. They spoke no English, but managed to convey that there was indeed a campsite that opens annually on May 1st. It was April 30th and after 6pm on a Sunday afternoon… Were there any chambre d'hotes? Non. I said that I would seek out one of the terrible roadside chain-hotels, but I must have cut a miserable figure: as I set off they called me back and demanded I stay the night. Their generosity was the perfect welcome to a part of Burgundy that has an altogether more southern European feel to it.
South-west of the town of Macon the vines of the Maconnais and Beaujolais carpet the valleys. Here the gentle, east-facing slope of the Côte d'Or gives way to more broken geography. Under the glare of the spectacular Rock of Solutre, the Maconnais produces two fine white wines - Pouilly-Fuisse and St Verand. The Maconnais vineyards are indistinguishable in places from those of the northern Beaujolais Crus with their Gamay grapes.
My trip was coming to an end and I relented on the serious wine-tasting - this was a place to have more relaxed fun. Wines are not as expensive, the villages are less aware of their own importance in the wine universe and the landscape is more exciting than the uniform Côte d'Or. In St Amour - the northernmost of nine Beaujolais Cru villages - I imbibed the quintessential St Valentine's Day wine before setting out over the hills to St Verand, Solutre, Fuisse and Pouilly, drinking as far as I went.
In these parts the structure of the industry differs from that on the Côte d'Or. Over some of his very good white wine, Pascal Rollet in Pouilly explained the local system of which he is part. He is a "vigneron", meaning that his house and vineyards were given to him by a landowner to cultivate. He tends the vines and makes the wine, but half of each vintage belongs to the owner of the property. This quaint throw-back to feudalism gives southern Burgundy a wholly different soul to the north. At most houses you need to knock, and chances are that the housewife will emerge in her apron to take you into the cellar for a tasting.
The towns themselves, spread among the vine-covered hills, complement this homeliness. Ochre-coloured houses with southern-tiled roofs are clustered around little Romanesque churches. Walls are gently decaying, plaster is falling off, steep and narrow streets are in mild disrepair, some houses are positively dilapidated. The decay is the visual equivalent of the smell of fermenting wine: a noble decadence.
Over lunch-time - anything from noon till 3pm - the towns become ghost villages. Not a soul stirs; even the flies appear too lazy to move in the midday heat. Evidence of life revolves around some local bar or restaurant. By now all that wine-tasting was taking its toll and I pulled up my bike at the Auberge la Vigne Blanche in Fuisse: meals are invariably hearty in Burgundy, and involve more wine. This is the home of boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin, among others.
At the auberge about 10 men were making the most of their day off with beer and wine on the restaurant's terrace. A rather coquettish waitress was serving them to general acclaim and loud banter. Even for them, the sun became a bit much and they withdrew inside for their meal. I was left on the terrace with a feast for the senses: glorious smells drifting from the kitchen, the beautiful noise of happy people, a deserted street of autumnal colours under a searing blue sky, plus great food and wine.
With my bicycle beckoning, the next mountain on the horizon and the food neutralising the wine, realism set in. The long-term cost of the little jaunt was far more than the all-too-many bottles of wine I acquired along the way: I had developed a taste for things I cannot afford.
The writer Hillaire Belloc also knew the hypnotic effect of Burgundy and its great wines. He once said in a speech: "When that this too, too solid flesh shall melt and I am called before my Heavenly Father, I shall say to him: Sir, I can't remember the name of the village and I don't remember the name of the girl, but the wine was Chambertin." Perhaps he was shown some understanding when that moment came - wine lies at the root of all that is Burgundy. And that is the splendid legacy of the medieval men of God.
After five days on the bicycle, having left the Côte d'Or behind, I arrived at Creches-sur-Saone on the edges of the Beaujolais and Maconnais regions. I had come all the way from Santenay at the southern tip of the Côte d'Or, through Mercurey, Givry and Buxy in the Côte Chalonnais. In Creches I stopped to ask directions to the campsite from a couple pottering in their garden. They spoke no English, but managed to convey that there was indeed a campsite that opens annually on May 1st. It was April 30th and after 6pm on a Sunday afternoon… Were there any chambre d'hotes? Non. I said that I would seek out one of the terrible roadside chain-hotels, but I must have cut a miserable figure: as I set off they called me back and demanded I stay the night. Their generosity was the perfect welcome to a part of Burgundy that has an altogether more southern European feel to it.
South-west of the town of Macon the vines of the Maconnais and Beaujolais carpet the valleys. Here the gentle, east-facing slope of the Côte d'Or gives way to more broken geography. Under the glare of the spectacular Rock of Solutre, the Maconnais produces two fine white wines - Pouilly-Fuisse and St Verand. The Maconnais vineyards are indistinguishable in places from those of the northern Beaujolais Crus with their Gamay grapes.
My trip was coming to an end and I relented on the serious wine-tasting - this was a place to have more relaxed fun. Wines are not as expensive, the villages are less aware of their own importance in the wine universe and the landscape is more exciting than the uniform Côte d'Or. In St Amour - the northernmost of nine Beaujolais Cru villages - I imbibed the quintessential St Valentine's Day wine before setting out over the hills to St Verand, Solutre, Fuisse and Pouilly, drinking as far as I went.
In these parts the structure of the industry differs from that on the Côte d'Or. Over some of his very good white wine, Pascal Rollet in Pouilly explained the local system of which he is part. He is a "vigneron", meaning that his house and vineyards were given to him by a landowner to cultivate. He tends the vines and makes the wine, but half of each vintage belongs to the owner of the property. This quaint throw-back to feudalism gives southern Burgundy a wholly different soul to the north. At most houses you need to knock, and chances are that the housewife will emerge in her apron to take you into the cellar for a tasting.
The towns themselves, spread among the vine-covered hills, complement this homeliness. Ochre-coloured houses with southern-tiled roofs are clustered around little Romanesque churches. Walls are gently decaying, plaster is falling off, steep and narrow streets are in mild disrepair, some houses are positively dilapidated. The decay is the visual equivalent of the smell of fermenting wine: a noble decadence.
Over lunch-time - anything from noon till 3pm - the towns become ghost villages. Not a soul stirs; even the flies appear too lazy to move in the midday heat. Evidence of life revolves around some local bar or restaurant. By now all that wine-tasting was taking its toll and I pulled up my bike at the Auberge la Vigne Blanche in Fuisse: meals are invariably hearty in Burgundy, and involve more wine. This is the home of boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin, among others.
At the auberge about 10 men were making the most of their day off with beer and wine on the restaurant's terrace. A rather coquettish waitress was serving them to general acclaim and loud banter. Even for them, the sun became a bit much and they withdrew inside for their meal. I was left on the terrace with a feast for the senses: glorious smells drifting from the kitchen, the beautiful noise of happy people, a deserted street of autumnal colours under a searing blue sky, plus great food and wine.
With my bicycle beckoning, the next mountain on the horizon and the food neutralising the wine, realism set in. The long-term cost of the little jaunt was far more than the all-too-many bottles of wine I acquired along the way: I had developed a taste for things I cannot afford.
The writer Hillaire Belloc also knew the hypnotic effect of Burgundy and its great wines. He once said in a speech: "When that this too, too solid flesh shall melt and I am called before my Heavenly Father, I shall say to him: Sir, I can't remember the name of the village and I don't remember the name of the girl, but the wine was Chambertin." Perhaps he was shown some understanding when that moment came - wine lies at the root of all that is Burgundy. And that is the splendid legacy of the medieval men of God.
