A Weekend in Bourgogne (translation: Burgundy)

Last weekend I parted fake France took off to "Real France" with Sam, Sarah and her husband. First stop on the roadtrip was to visit Justin in Chalon-sur-saône. He was the most hospitable host and I'm glad I had to see his charming town before his move to Paris. (Thanks again Justin).

I had every intention to go running along the river but life got in the way.


And by life I of course mean wine tastings, dining, sleeping and things like that. We visited several caves in the region and two of my faves were the Jean-Claude and Anna Breliere and the Paul Chollet domaines. The former is run by the cutest and most friendly couple imaginable offers all types of burgundy wine. The latter only produces crémants which are French sparkling wines not made in the Champagne region. Go figure.


While I did have a lot of fun on my trip I did manage to learn a thing or two about wine. In Burgundy there are two primary grape varieties grown the Chardonnay grape and the Pinot Noir grape and very little blending if any and little flexibility compared to the five primary varieties produced in Bordeaux and much more blending. Hence, if there is a bad harvest one year in Burgundy chances are you aren't going to have any good wine from that region and the producers are SOL whereas in Bordeaux producers have a lot more leeway to create their wines which is why they say that you can never really go wrong with a Bordeaux wine.

In addition to visiting caves and wine tasting we also visited the Hospices de Beaune and spent a day touring Dijon.

Comfy looking hospital beds

Medicine Anyone?

How 'bout some surgery?

Thanks to the Frenchies I have another long weekend coming up and I'll be heading down south to visit Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.