Beaune 1

Soon after our arrival in Dijon we heard that the beautiful Côte d’Or that we could gaze at from our unit at the fac had wineries enough for an army. The country trains from Dijon go through the heart of this wine country to Nuits St. Georges and Beaune. Being lovers of fine Australian wine (and not so fine Australian wine that is still fine because it’s Australian), we were excited about visiting one of the best known wine regions of France to see what all the fuss was about. In Australia we get French wine but it’s normally not very nice (unless you pay outrageous prices for the good stuff).

One hot Sunday, just two weeks into our stay, we took the train to Beaune. First on our list of things to visit was the Hôtel Dieu or Hospices de Beaune (our priority was to go to one of the many wine merchants for a wine tasting but it was before midday and we have to have some principles about drinking, don’t we?).

The Hôtel Dieu was built in the 15th century as a hospital for the poor who were suffering from sickness and famine after the Hundred Years War. We paid our €5 each and took our pamphlets in French and English, explaining the many rooms and halls of the hospital. It was actually used as a hospital until the 1970s. Now it has been opened up for the public to visit. It really is a beautiful example of medieval architecture. The most impressive part of the place is the courtyard where you can stare in wonder at the glazed coloured roof tiles, which were apparently the first in the area to be arranged in the famous geometric patterns that have come to be recognised as typically Burgundian.

After having lunch (smartly eating before going drinking, I mean, wine tasting), we proceeded to the Marché aux Vins and for €9 got to taste 4 white wines and 14 red wines. We thought at first that this was a bit hefty. But then we were told that we could proceed unaccompanied and try as much of the wine as we wanted, as long as we were finished within about an hour. Not a bad deal in my opinion.

The first half of the tasting is below ground in the cellars and as you walk from one wine to the next you pass barrels of ageing wine. There’s also a display of really old wines (behind locked bars of course) with their name and year tagged on them. The oldest we saw was from 1915. It was definitely impressive, wish we could have tried those wines in our visit! Above the cellar was the more expensive and presumably better selection of wines (prices all higher than €20 a bottle), but in our opinion some of the cheaper bottles were nicer. I have a feeling though that we had our Australian wine hats on and not our French ones.

I know for a fact now that Australian and French wines can’t be compared. Having developed my taste for wine in Australia, I tend to enjoy a full-bodied tannin-filled wine. No light fruity wines for me thank you very much. That’s why every time I tried French wine in the past I really didn’t like it. Tasted a bit metallic.

But I discovered through lack of Australian wine while living in France (there’s so much of the French stuff that they don’t need to sell wine from anywhere else) that when you don’t compare the two, French wine can actually be thoroughly enjoyed. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I like French wine better than Australian wine. I don’t. But I can appreciate it now that I’ve been able to live with it for a year and it’s not as bad as I originally thought. I just don my French wine hat and Bob’s your uncle (or Bernard is in my case).

Anyway, we walked away from the Marché Aux Vins in Beaune with a few bottles of nice wine that promptly got put under the lounge to be transported later in the year back to Australia for long-term storage.