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Saturday, 7 January 2012

En Bourgogne

This trip officially marked my first visit to the French wine country, and I have a feeling that there will be many more to come after this experience...

The idea of going to the French countryside to eat, drink and be merry was not a new one in my head, and a dear friend's move back to New York (ahem, Rina, ahem) was a perfect reason and opportunity to do it. The timing was perfect as Burgundy was celebrating the Hospice de Beaune wine auction, which is the oldest and most traditional wine auction in the world. It is celebrated with the town being transformed into a festival of delicious regional goodies and food & wine tastings. Rina and Yana, I think it's fair to say that our first trip was 'absolument fabuloux', and I know there will be many more to come! The crew: Rina, Yana, Tori, Dan, Andrew, Monika, Diana, Kevin, Mark and moi.

Our itinerary began with a Eurostar into Paris where we would spend the night away dining in a delicious French bistro, followed by a roadtrip to the picturesque Cote de Nuit - a wine region in the heart of Burgundy famous for its 2 wines: the red Pinot Noir and the white Chardonnay.

Our Friday night started in a typical Parisian style with a late visit to the bistro Chez Janou, which was discovered by Rina years ago and remembered for its 'best chocolate mousse ever', which it was...it was also served in a giant 'all you can eat' bowl, which is a very-very dangerous way to serve something delicious. It was truly a perfect start to our glutenous weekend. One big dinner and several bottles of wine later, we finished the evening with a tipsy and picturesque walk through the night streets of Paris.

We set off on our 5 hour drive to Chateu de Melin, a chateau and a winery in a tiny town along the wine route and our accommodation, the following morning.  Dijon was our first stop, and it was all about food. We had our second delicious meal of the trip at Le Sauvage. Dijon is a gateway to Cote de Nuit's Grand Crus Wine Road – a legendary road that stretches for miles and is lined with the some of the best Pinor Noir and Chardonnay wineries in the world. The drive along the road was absolutely stunning, even though we went in the middle of November. You see everything from medieval villages, to green rolling hills dotted with wineries, abbeys and cathedrals, to miles and miles of vineyards - anyone would all in love with Burgundy after experiencing it...especially under the influence of a glass or two of wine hehe. We managed to stop at two wineries along the way to sample the wine, learn more about the region, and stock up for dinner.

We drove into Beaune, the centre of the festival action for our dinner at Le Cheval for a tasty meal number 3 (including more Pinot Noir, of course), before setting off to our final stop of the night - our chateau. Mark and I first got to stay in a chateaux when we visited Normandy in September, and it's since then became my favourite type of accommodation. I love the history that each one comes with, antique decor and the stunning green grounds. Cherry on the top - local produce breakfast of freshly made croissants, breads, jams and yogurts - my ultimate idea of a perfect breakie. We spent the night drinking almost all the bottles of wine that we bought to take home (we tried to save it but couldn't resist), which went really well with playing Uno and not so well with playing Mafia.

The following day was all about exploring Beaune and the wine festival grounds. The atmosphere was wonderful and the town was filled with happy people and music. More importantly, the town was filled with lots of food and wine stalls, so we lunched on all our French favourites: escargot, mulled wine, french onion soup, oysters, cheese, and crepes. I truly wish that we could've stayed longer, but am fearing that I would've probably gained an additional 3 pounds. In fact, even the weather was telling us not to come back...London had really bad fog, so the planes weren't flying out, causing us to be stuck at the airport for 5 hours (but we were plenty entertained by the Foosball tables :D). Here's a photo recap of our fun Burgundy expedition: