Epic trip to Burgundy, Sept 2013

Last Saturday G, ACC and I set off to Burgundy in our usual style i.e. a cork was gently eased out of a bottle of Pol Roger as the Eurostar drew out of St Pancras, much to the amazement/jealousy of fellow passengers. This was accompanied by some Roka Cheese Crispies, which didn't last long. There was a slight altercation when it turned out I'd forgotten to bring forks for our salad, but G manfully went to the buffet car and stole some plastic numbers so harmony was soon restored.

At last we got to Beaune station and found the heavens had opened. We made our soggy way to the local supermarket to stock up on essentials like pate, cheese and 200 bottles of Badoit, and then after multiple attempts managed to find a taxi. We were staying at a new place which was allegedly in the centre of Beaune, so it was quite surprising when the taxi hurtled out of the town centre and had practically made it into open countryside before drawing up at a very ordinary-looking house with a clothes-drier outside sporting several pairs of gentleman's socks. Nevertheless, this was the address we had been given.

A man inside overheard us talking and came out to see what was going on. It turned out that this was the home of madame who was renting us the gite and not the actual gite itself. Oops! Since our taxi had by now disappeared into the distance, the chap phoned madame, who was waiting for us at the gite, and she drove back to collect us. G and I got in the back of her car/van where there were no seats, so we had to crouch on the floor and hold on as best we could, while ACC had the benefit of the front seat. You know you're in Burgundy when stuff like this starts happening. G claims that his mackintosh will never be the same. Eventually we made it to a street we recognised and then turned off down an extremely narrow lane. I was very impressed by madame's precision driving - there was about a millimetre of clearance on each side.

It's still not entirely clear why she gave ACC her own address instead of the address of the gite, but we were happy because the gite was much closer to the town centre than the house with the socks had been. She showed us round, including unnecessarily detailed instructions on how to use the microwave, dishwasher etc., and explained at length the additional tariffs for towels, cleaning etc. I left the others to it at this point and went to get the luggage, managing to give myself concussion on the low ceiling of the utility room. Then it was time to go for dinner. Hurrah!

Usually we go to Caves Madeleine for our first dinner of the trip, but shockingly, it was fully booked, so Cheval Noir was our second choice. We walked through Beaune in the rain, G leading the pack and accelerating like Mo Farah as he spotted his destination. Getting out of the horrible rain and into the warmth and serene atmosphere of that place was one of the nicest experiences of the trip.

We sat at the same table as last time and had a wonderful kir to start with. Afterwards we debated whether it was only so good because it was the first of the trip. I guess we should have gone there again on the last day to test the hypothesis. Amuses-gueles quickly appeared and then a melon thing in a glass, with slivers of bacon in it. We had the 30 euro menu with extra cheese at a supplement of 9 euros. The highlight for me was the Norwegian trout with "espuma" potatoes - the wonderful fluffy, cheesy potatoes we had last time - while ACC had a piece of pork with loads of girolles. I really enjoyed my main course but was nevertheless jealous of his and started hinting that we needed to come back again later in the week, but to no avail. To drink, we had some white Auxey-Duresses and then some red Auxey-Duresses 2009 from Domaine Bzikot, both of which were very good. The bill was 200 euros for the three of us, and we had eaten and drunk very well. Once again, we felt Cheval Noir was on the verge of a Michelin star. Certainly the 30 euro menu is excellent value.

ACC wanted to go to "Route 66" on Place Carnot afterwards but it looked packed and we ended up in another cafe where we had a disappointing marc and then decided to go home and try out our very own cellar!

Chorey, Chorey everywhere

Madame had generously provided us with a bottle of 2006 Chorey-les-Beaune from the family estate. Obviously we were very excited to try this as we know from frequent missives from the Wine Society what a great vintage 2006 was for red Burgundy (#sarcasm). It was predictably revolting. We had a look round the cellar to see what else there was, but it was literally just bottles and bottles of this stuff. Quite sad really. Fortunately while at the supermarket G and I had taken the precaution of getting a bottle of Maranges 1er cru la Fussiere from Domaine Pagnotta, so at least we had something drinkable, even if on the rustic side.

In fact the cave itself was strangely spooky, with weird agricultural implements on the walls, and an odd stone semi-religious figure in a hole in the wall presiding over proceedings. On a subsequent evening, G closed the door which made it feel incredibly claustrophobic. Something out of a horror movie could have happened at any second. Imagine being imprisoned in there, with just 5000 bottles of revolting 2006 Chorey-les-Beaune to drink... It didn't bear thinking about. Fortunately this was not our fate, and we made it to bed soon after midnight, knowing that we didn't have to get up early the next morning.

SPNS dinner, Tuesday 14th May

On Tuesday night it was another SPNS dinner with everyone in attendance apart from A, who has never actually attended. Hopefully he will one day!

I arrived to find the others guzzling prosecco and was informed that what appeared to be a stray glass was available for me only for T, moments later, to howl with indignation that his had disappeared - fortunately I hadn't started drinking it yet. A fresh glass was poured and all was well. This was Prosecco Extra Dry Baccharetto and was provided by P. It was generally well-received - crisp, pleasant and refreshing, a good summer aperitif. We quickly knocked it back and headed upstairs where we could have more space to ourselves. I broke the club rules by taking photos, but nobody seemed too bothered.

Next up was this Puligny-Montrachet 09 from Jean-Louis Chavy, provided by G. He was given this, so brought it along even though the cost was above that permitted by SPNS rules. Apparently the way to justify bringing something expensive to the SPNS is to pretend it was a gift - I've filed this info away for future reference. We all thought it was ok (drinkable and correct) but nobody raved about it and G said he wouldn't have paid good money for it.

On to the reds. This Chateau Plagnac Cru Bourgeois 1989 was provided by P (at what point did we all start bringing two bottles instead of one? Not that I'm complaining...) It exceeded expectations and went down very well. We all found it drinkable, with good fruit and tannin, and mature but not over the hill. A success.

This red Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru Clos Saint-Jean 1983 from Ramonet came from my own stocks - it was my last bottle of this wine, which I snapped up at auction some time ago. Note the charming clingfilm cover to keep the label on! This was another risk for the SPNS as I have a track record of bring wines which are faulty or have gone off, but this time it paid off. It was fully mature, lovely old Burgundy with a wonderful finish.  "A triumph" wrote G. Hurrah!

To follow, we had this Chorey-les-Beaune Les Beaumonts 2011 from Ludovic Belin, provided by ACC. This vineyard is right by the gite where we usually stay when we go to Burgundy, so it was lovely to drink something from it. It was quite a contrast to the Chassagne, being young, vibrant and fruity - tres Chorey. T declared it the kind of Burgundy he likes to drink, which is high praise coming from him.

A quick photo to compare and contrast the Chassagne - a wonderful mature reddish brown colour - and the Chorey, bright purple.

We then moved on to this Zweigelt-Rebe 2009 from Japan, brought along by D. Unfortunately my Japanese isn't up to deciphering the label! This went down very well. Somebody has written a comment "very forward, like a keen geisha" in the book - disgraceful. G and I both thought that if we had been tasting it blind we might very well have taken it to be an Austrian wine - we've had Blauer Zweigelt before and it's quite distinctive. Kudos to the producers for getting such a good expression of the grape. Very interesting.

We then moved on to a pair of sweet vendange tardive gewurztraminers from Kuentz-Bas, Cuvee Caroline, provided by T. One was from 2001 and the other 2007.

Spot the difference. I found the 2001 big and opulent, while the 2007 bore a resemblance but wasn't quite the finished article just yet. G controversially preferred the 2007 leading some of us to speculate that he had got his glasses mixed up. There were other contradictory remarks in the book (one member thought the 2001 had a poor finish, another said it had a long finish) while T only managed "Good". I guess we were flagging by this stage!

However, there was more to come. This is a visual joke - it was the remaining half bottle of the 1976 Rieussec from the previous evening decanted into the 1983 d'Yquem bottle. We did consider pretending to the others that it was actually d'Yquem and seeing whether any of them would spot that it wasn't, but that wouldn't have been very kind. The Rieussec went down well but for me, it suffered by comparison to the d'Yquem the night before. It tasted more of honey than marmalade. It was well-balanced and long, but it somehow seemed to lack complexity.

Finally, we had this Seifried Nelson "Sweet Agnes" riesling 2011 provided by G. Hmmm. Quite a contrast. I appear to have quoted some lyrics from "Firestarter" in the book which was my way of referring to the petrol-like quality it had. ACC just wrote "Shell". It wasn't my cup of tea at all. Some of the others didn't dislike it, and to be fair, it probably suffered from comparison with the other sweet wines we'd just had - it was a mere nipper by comparison.

All in all, another great dinner and one particularly in the spirit of the SPNS in that there was a wide range of unusual things that we wouldn't normally get to drink. Looking forward to October already!

Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire vertical!

The other night after a hard day at work I succumbed to temptation and cracked open a bottle of my 2006 Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire. Shortly afterwards, G appeared and informed me that he had opened a bottle of (NB my) BGO 2005 downstairs the previous evening and still had some left. Immediately the light bulbs flashed on and a vertical tasting ensued.

Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire isn't something you see much of and I've just attempted to find out what the definition is, without much success. Basically it's a mixture of pinot noir and gamay, so it's a bit like a passetoutgrains, but passetoutgrains has to be at least 1/3 pinot, whereas I'm not clear if any such restriction exists for BGO.

Both of these wines came from Domaine Michel Martin, who happens to be the owner of the gite we have stayed in several times in Chorey-les-Beaune. I've tasted there twice and always enjoyed it very much. Monsieur Martin is always twinkly and welcoming and his wines are quite humble but delicious of their type.

Recently I acquired a mixed case of the 2005 and the 2006. The 2006 (on the left) has a vibrant red colour and is smooth, relatively light and very quaffable. My only quibble is that I get a slight stemminess on the finish. However, having been out in Burgundy for the 2006 harvest, we saw that a lot of the grapes were full of rot, so to produce something this good from that vintage is actually quite an achievement.

The 2005 is a darker, murkier, plummy colour. It has perhaps greater intensity and is well-rounded. Weirdly, we've discovered it gets better a day after opening. 2005 was a fabulous year for burgundy so I would predict that the 2005 BGO would beat the 2006, but what is surprising is how good the 2006 actually is.

Label detectives will note that the label underwent quite a transformation between the two years. Think I preferred the old one - the inverse law of labels means that this probably bodes well for the future! Hope he produced some BGO in 2009...

Ermitage de Corton, 3rd Jan

On Sunday morning we pottered about at the gite, watched some bad French TV and caught up on all the reading material and newspapers we'd brought with us. Then it was time to venture out for lunch at the Ermitage de Corton, a 4 star hotel on the main road.

None of us had been to this place before and there was some discussion about the best route to take - walking along the main road with lorries juddering past is not the most pleasant experience, so we opted for the back route, without knowing if it would actually get us there or not. This gave us an opportunity to admire the Christmas decorations of Chorey and in particular, the Santa Claus figures who seemed determined to break and enter each house in a different way. At one house, a red-clad figure was was hammering at a window, at another there was one abseiling down a front door, etc.

After about a 10 minute walk, a building which we thought was the hotel came into view and we made our way down the unpromising-looking cul de sac towards it. Fortunately there was a back gate which opened, and we crossed the lawn rather furtively as we were still not absolutely sure this was the right place. We went up some steps at the side and discovered the sweeping gravel-covered drive and the main entrance, so all was well.

We were shown into a large dining room in which only one table was occupied. It felt very 70s and there was some tinny bad music playing softly in the background. But the food was great. We went for the 46 euro menu which was three courses plus cheese. To start with AM had pike and pancetta while ACC and I went for poached duck liver with truffles. Then for mains we had young partridge, with a lovely sauce. The cheese trolley was magnificent, and had a great variety of local and other French cheeses, including AM's favourite, Epoisses, and a rather fabulous Delice de Pommard, a mild soft cheese covered in mustard seeds. For pud we had some sort of chocolate thing (I really should have taken notes at the time!) which I don't think was quite as good as the assiette from Ciboulette the night before.

The main topic of conversation during lunch was whether our waiter was English or not. He spoke to us sometimes in English and had a distinctly northern accent, not something you expect from your average Frenchman. He also had his fringe combed forward in the style that was fashionable a few years ago. We came to the conclusion that he must have spent a year or two in Manchester.

As regards wine, ACC had established that the Ermitage did corkage for 10 euros a bottle, so the previous night we'd bought a couple of things in Mon Millesime: a 1992 white Beaune, which was a fabulous golden colour, and really rather wonderful, and a 1990 Volnay Clos des Chenes. It was fantastic to drink mature burgundy in such a setting without having to pay ridiculous prices, and they decanted them for us and, when asked, left them on the table so we could serve ourselves - thereby avoiding the vexed issue of the selective refill which is guaranteed to wind me up!

Afterwards, we walked back to the gite along the main road which took about 15 minutes. Staying in Chorey one has to get a taxi to go anywhere, so this place was a real discovery close to home.