John Linton We had the late start we have been getting used to with breakfast in our room pushed back to 9 am this morning as our first 'tour was not due to start until 10.30 and the driving distance was less than 20 minutes from our hotel. We also had the bonus of an unbroken night's sleep for the first time which was a pleasant surprise. Last night we went to what was probably the best restaurant we have been to since arriving in France - no Michelin stars, none of the George Cinq theatrics - simply sensational tasting and immaculately presented and served food and wine at far less than half Paris prices. A memorable meal.
Our morning was spent at Chateau Pommard with its magnificent chateau with its Dali original sculptures (including the one I wanted to buy a reproduction of) and its extensive underground caves. We tasted our way through a range of Pommard premier and grand crus and ended up buying a selection of the ones that really appealed to us for shipping home (including Chambertin). The lady conducting our tour and the subsequent the sampling was, as you would expect, deeply knowledgeable and quite 'fiery' and it took her a while not be offended by my clumsy attempts at humour - which were genuinely intended to be positive and complimentary but my non existent French and atrocious pronunciation and her stilted English obvious presented an uncrossable language barrier. However she eventually thawed out and became almost cocquettish by the time we left - even going so far as presenting me with a complimentary bottle of 2007 grand cru Corton as we left. Perhaps my wallet worked more magic than my humour attempts did.
We then were driven in to Beaune to have a look round the town and have lunch. It is a very beautiful small town (around 25,000 people) with most of the remains of its medieval walls and fortifications and no building over 4 stories tall with the majority being pre 20th century ranging back to the 15th century including the amazing hospice we took time out to visit. Obviously, being the centre city of the Burgundian wine district there are wall to wall wine merchants, almost as many restaurants and cafes and cheese shops but, unlike the left bank, almost no/no "tourist outlets'. While I know it's a major wine region it's difficult to get a glass of beer anywhere and even more difficult to get French beer - it was quite a warm day. We had a light lunch at a non-tourist cafe and then set out for Corton.
We visited the largest land holder in Corton (Alex Corton) and had a tasting of a range of their wines which were very impressive made even more enjoyable by the young woman who presented the wines and when asked what the best Corton wine was she had ever tasted thought for a moment and said it was hard to choose between the 1937 red grand cru and the 1943 white. However she went on to assure us that while the 2005 is now regarded as the year of the century she said it was now generally considered that 2009 would prove to be even better and while the grapes were still being picked the 2011 would be "a very decent wine". They didn't ship wine (you could buy 'take away') so we thanked her warmly and went to a less famous label 100 or so meters down the road - also in a very beautiful large house but not a 'chateau'....Domaine Comte Senard.
At Senard we were greeted by a charming young man who took us to see their vines which grow almost in the centre of Corton and are completely enclosed via a stone wall entitling the appellation addition of 'clos'. We then ran through a range of their 'standard' wines before he brought out three of their grand crus one being a 2000 because he said "you can't really appreciate these wines until they are ten years old. All of them were mind blowingly good and we ended up buying some of both the white and red 2009 because they do ship to Australia.
A really enjoyable day.
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