Beaune Fete des Grands Vins de Bourgogne

A few months ago Lorraine, who is the social/entertainment administrator of our partnership,  ordered us tickets to the 2019 Fete des Grands Vins de Bourgogne and to the “Diner Vignerons et Jeunes Talents” in Beaune, which is a couple of hour train trip from Lyon.  These events are part of the biggest weekend for wine in the Burgundy region.  Since our wine tasting group traveled to France (and Beaune) in 1985, we knew something about this event, and the auction of the  wines of the Hospices de Beaune which occurs on the same weekend. 

We left from Gare le Part-Dieu on Friday morning, the day after our first snow.  I made several attempts to get a picture of the snow-covered fields from the train.  Here is the best I could do.

We arrived in Beaune on time and immediately walked toward our hotel to leave our bags – in the wrong direction.  We realized our mistake before too long and eventually found the hotel, only to find that it was closed until the check-in time of 4:00 pm.  We had no desire to lug our suitcase all over Beaune and were lucky enough to encounter a hotel employee who unlocked a back door for us so we could leave our suitcase. 

We then made our way into the walled center city, passing the Bouchard Pere et Fils winery that we had visited in 1985.  Some of the Ginko trees still held their beautiful yellow leaves.

We had a wonderful lunch in the Place Carnot, which was setting up for the festivities that would take place tomorrow.  As usual, we (mostly Lorraine) had a great conversation with the people seated next to us – mostly in French.

We next took the long walk to the Palais des Congres, where our major wine tasting, as well as our dinner in the evening would take place.  The tasting was, in a word, overwhelming!  We go to a very good wine shop in Williamsburg and find maybe 2 or 3 Pommards, for example.  At this tasting, there were 32 Pommards that we could taste.  This was replicated across all of the AOCs in Burgundy.  By my count in the official listing, there were 88 AOCs available for tasting.  I could tell that many of the attendees were locals – winemakers who were interested in tasting their competitors wines for comparison.  I could only taste a few examples of some of the wonderful wines of Burgundy. 

We eventually tore ourselves away from the wine tasting and walked the mile or so back to our hotel.  We had been on our feet, except for lunch, from the time we exited the train until we got back to the hotel and checked in.  We had been told by everyone we asked that our chances of getting a taxi to go back to the Palais des Congres for the dinner were slim to none and Uber doesn’t work in Beaune.  We were considering the possibility of finding a meal in town close to the hotel and missing the wine dinner when Anne, the wonderful desk clerk from the hotel, knocked on our door to say she had arranged a taxi for us.  As you will see, we were saved!

­­Our taxi picked us up on time and agreed to come get us at the end of the dinner.  At the dinner, we were the first to our table, but were soon joined by the winemaker Michel Prunier and his friends to fill the table of 12.  Though most our group only spoke French, they welcomed us and made us feel like Burgundians.  The dinner was planned in the Paulee style, which means that everyone brings a bottle of wine to share with the table.  As we learned, the French take this seriously, and bring good and interesting wines.  I went to our closest neighborhood wine shop and discussed the possibilities with the owner, who is from Burgundy.  We ended up agreeing on a Maranges Blanc and an Irancy Rouge for our two bottles.  (I knew of Maranges, since I had purchased a Maranges Rouge when we visited Macon;  I had never heard of Irancy, which is a red wine region near the white wine region of Chablis.)  I was extremely pleased that these two wines were favorably received by our very knowledgeable table.

Our dinner was fantastic and we enjoyed tastes of some wonderful Burgundys brought by Michel Prunier and his friends.  You can see that we had plenty of wine from the picture below, but know that we didn’t drink all of any of these.   We had a pour bucket on the table and we all used it.

It turns out that Michel Prunier is also the designated Bourgogne song leader, so in his robust baritone, he led the room in several traditional rollicking songs from the region.  It was impossible not to be involved in the spirit of the whole room.  We absolutely loved it. 

Our taxi drive picked us up promptly when we called him after 1:00 am .  A fantastic day and evening.  Anne, the desk clerk who set up the taxi got a really nice tip the next morning.

The next morning was Saturday, and the Wine festival was officially in full swing.  We had breakfast in the hotel and met a lawyer from the Czech Republic which gave Lorraine the opportunity to have much discussion about our potential visit there to find graves and maybe remnants of her Maternal Grandfather’s family.

We then headed into town, where the crowds were already gathering.  There were many booths for food and wine, and since the temperature was low, many of them offered vin chaud, or what we would call mulled wine.  It hit the spot.  As you can see, there was also lots of fromage and charcuterie available.

At another stop there were huge steaming copper pots of Pot-au-feu on an outdoor grill.

There was an uncorking contest for both men and women.  They had to use the old traditional corkscrews.  The winners were very impressive.  Some of the others were less so.  I don’t think I would have fared very well.

We had an excellent lunch in Restaurant Le Fleury.

There were groups of dancers in traditional garb doing traditional dances with traditional instruments and traditional music.  They were all very colorful.

Some of the dances were extremely athletic and I was glad to see that some of the dancers weren’t all that young.  I especially liked this particularly gaelic  gentlemen.

After lunch we visited the Hospices de Beaune, which served as a free hospital for the poor from the 15^th century until the 1950s.  Sometime in the past, the Hospices acquired some vineyards as a gift.  One of the most important events of the Beaune wine festival is the annual auction of their wines – in the barrel, to be bottled later.  I love the famous courtyard with its tiled roof.

The great room of the Hospices with the beds lining both sides and its great wooden barrel roof is also most impressive.  The painted beams and fanciful creatures served to entertain the patients as well as the sisters who were the nurses.  One end of the great room is the chapel with its beautiful stained glass window.

After our tour of the Hospices, we reluctantly said goodbye to Beaune and joined large groups of young people – many of whom had obviously made good use of the multiple opportunities to taste the wonderful Burgundy wines – finding the proper train to get back hope.  It was a great two days!