There will always be a soft spot in my heart for the appellation of Auxey-Duresses. I bought a case of the wine back in 2005. I had never heard of the appellation before but I tasted one at a wine show here in Paris. It was nothing startling but well-balanced and pleasant and it was priced right.
I shared a bottle with a friend, the owner of one of my favorite restaurants. He was very impressed; he had never tasted such a good Auxey. I prided myself on showing an expert something new (I wish I could say it was my expertise that justified my pride but it was sheer dumb luck). Ever since then I’ve been on the trail to find good bottles of this tiny appellation. By the time I finally saw the vineyards I felt like I was meeting an old friend.
Since I was the driver, I hesitated in stopping at one of the wineries in the village for a tasting. Besides it was Sunday and assumed they were probably closed.
“You’ve been yammering about coming here to taste wine,” my companion said, “and you’re not going to stop?”
“Well, you know, driving, safety and all that…”
“Well, you’re crazy.”
Determined not to let that stinging insult to my pride go unchallenged, I turned into the driveway that indicated a Premier Cru and braked the car.
“Ha!” I said, my cleverly constructed, laser-sharp retort reducing her to a sniveling mass of jelly.
“This is the post office,” the jelly responded. “The tasting room is next door where it says ‘Domaine Roy.”
Domaine Roy, as luck would have it, is one of the best producers in the area. And it was open. A young man with a friendly face (I think it was Vincent Roy himself) answered the door and we entered a dark, tiny room that smelled of damp wood and wine. After startling him with my command of the French language (“Comment? You want to taste some barrels?”), he served up a 2007 Premier Cru. It was wonderful. He showed us the cellar. It was exactly as I had imagined; small, long, low and dark, arched ceiling, barrels resting comfortably on wooden stands. The clichés still hold true.
We slid into Beaune about mid-day along the D973. Beaune is built on an ancient Roman castrum or fortress that dates back to the 6th century. It was a Gallo- Roman outpost rebuilt over and over; some of the ramparts from the 15th century walls are still standing. They circle the center of town as does the modern roads. And that’s exactly what we did; circle the outside of the city for the next half-hour on the one way thoroughfare trying like hell to find the side street to our hotel, the Hotel de la Paix.
I fear I may fall into the most syrupy travelogue clichés as I describe Beaune. We loved it. “Delightful” “pleasing” “pleasant” “agreeable” and “likeable” are the first words that come to mind (and the first words under the entry of “charming” in my Oxford paperback Thesaurus). We wandered the town for the next two days, poking into the boutique shops, visiting the wine museum and just admiring the architecture with the classic Burgundian multicolored roof tiles. On the first evening, while waiting for my companion to ready herself for dinner I discovered a wine bar a block away and had a great conversation over an excellent Auxey with the young server, a pilot, about wine, terroir, politics and photography (he published a book of aerial shots of all the Grand Crus appellations in Burgundy).
Château Pommard is about fifteen minutes south from Beaune by car along the famous Route des Grands Crus, the road that runs through all the top appellations of the Côte d’Or. But that didn’t keep is from getting lost amongst the vineyards surrounding the town on the way to the château. As we waited for the tour to begin at the château, we admired at the two Salvador Dali sculptures in the courtyard (and the exhibit of Dali prints in an adjacent gallery) and talked to a couple falconers in costume who showed us two birds from their aviary, a falcon and owl. We toured of the cellars with a small group of Dutch tourists. The stacks of bottles seemed to go on forever.
Later, following the tour, we drove west to the village of Saint Romain and wandered around the ruins of an 12th century castle, really a bunch of tumbled rocks strewn over a hill top, mostly lost in tall weeds and wild bushes. But the view from the hill was spectacular.
We drove back into Beaune and rested up for dinner which was the best we had on the trip; sautéed girolle (chanterelle) mushrooms in a light cream sauce and pigeon. And of course some of the local wine. It was perfect.
The next morning the rain came down in buckets or, to use the French idiom, Il tombe des cordes (literally “It falls like ropes”). We had planned to visit a friend’s vineyard in Chardonnay but decided the mud and rain wouldn’t make for a pleasant experience, so we packed the car again and headed north for Dijon.
We stopped in Nuit Saint Georges mid-morning. It was July 14, the national Independence Day, so not much was open (except for the skies and they opened with a vengeance). We drank coffee outside in the town square as the rain battered the canopy over us. Between drops we returned to the car and, after stopping briefly for a tasting at a tiny château in Vougeot, got back into Dijon around lunchtime.
I picked out the hotel for our last night in Burgundy for convenience; it was close to the train station where we were to return the car. Bad choice. It was close and convenient. But the room was a tiny shoebox of a space with an air conditioner that worked when the mood struck. We had to buy our own soap for the shower too. But it was a short walk into the center of town where we bought some of our souvenirs for friends and family. To my mind Dijon hasn’t the charm of the smaller villages but of course it’s bigger and it’s also the seat of Burgundy with a major train station and small airport. I’ve promised myself to give it another chance sometime soon.
We headed back to Paris on the train the following afternoon. It was a short tour around the Côte d’Or, barely enough time to say we experienced it. But, later, looking over the few photos I took to document our brief safari, a glass of the local grape in my left hand, I knew I would return soon. If I can use an appropriate analogy, however predictably mawkish it seems, our trip was like sampling a thimbleful of a Grand Cru. It was pleasing enough to titillate but left me wanting more.
Yes, please, I think I will have another glass of wine.
Doug
Cushman is a former Redding artist and author who lives and works in Paris. He was born in Springfield,Ohio,and moved to Connecticut with his family at the age of 15. In high school he created comic books lampooning his teachers, selling them to his classmates for a nickel apiece. Since 1978, he has illustrated and/or written more than 100 books for children and collected a number of honors, including a Reuben Award for Book Illustration from the National Cartoonists Society, New York Times Children’s Books Best Sellers, and the New York Public Library’s Best 100 Books of 2000. He enjoys hiking, kayaking and cooking (and eating!). Learn more at his website, doug-cushman.com.
