The Burgundy Region defines the word bucolic. Rolling hills of grapes, with narrow, one lane roads winding around; fields sliced and carved by rock walls, and the hole scene backed by stone villages with steeples and little chateau castles here and there.
Add in the food: the local cuisine is fantastic. I mean, France overall is a gastronomic treat, but in this area it is taken to a whole other level.
It was in Beaune where I fist had boeuf bourguignon and coq a vin paired with local red table wine. Here we could just walk into any old café and expect a righteous meal, at once filling, tasty and well priced.
We spent a couple too-short days driving slowly around the lanes, town to town. The roads are a great place to bike, but since I am not really a bike rider, I’d like to return and walk the back roads and paths, going winery to winery, village to village. I hear that they keep back their best wine for the locals, and serve it up as the every day drinking wine, then sell off the rest. It might be true, at any rate we never “ordered” a specific wine, just a pitcher of the house wine, and it was always fantastic, always went perfect with the meal.
We stayed up a small valley, in the small village of St. Romain. The village, at the head of the valley, is surrounded by cliffs. We stayed in a wine maker’s home, the Maison d’ Hotes, Domaine Corgette, and it was a surprisingly stylish place to stay.