Thursday - Cote De Nuits
On Wednesday, Vikram and I had basically hit Cote de Beaune’s main villages and purchased some wines. On Thursday, we made our way to Cote de Nuits. We drove to the tourist office in Gevrey Chambertin to find out which of the vineyards are accepting visitors and are giving tasting. Harvest is especially in full swing in this region being to the north. The office had a map which showed the vineyards in the main villages. But after calling around in the morning we did not have any luck at all.
Walking in Gevrey Chambertin
We walked and drove around hungering for a drop of free wine, but got none. It was finally after 2:00 PM, after lunch, that our luck changed and we ran into some caves where degustation was on. We went to all the top villages and sampled wines there. The people were generally helpful and willing to show and talk about their wines. The landscape was very pretty and we stopped often to take pictures.
In Chambole Musigny
Our thirst quenched, we purchased at least one bottle from each of the main village appellations as we made our way south back to Beaune.
The weather held up and the sun poked out a few times to offer some brilliant sunshine and photo ops of some value. We wrapped up the day a little earlier than on the day before.
Rows of vines
For dinner we went to Le P’tit Paradis. This was a restaurant recommended by Wine Spectator. It had begun to drizzle a little and had gotten quite cool as we made our way there. Both of us put on light jackets for the occasion. The restaurant was in a dark, quiet lane and would never had chanced upon it otherwise. Dinner turned out to be excellent!
The typical thing here seems to be a fixed menu where you get - Le Entrée (a thing between appetizer and entrée), Le Plat (the main course) and dessert or frommage. If one were to get this three course a la carte it would be like 50 euro. But in fixe menu it is half that. So both last night and tonight I did the fixe thing and both nights I was happy for it.
Tomorrow, we plan to head south of Beaune, to some of the lesser villages. Been fun so far.