Wine, Dine and Stocks in Burgundy Dream Seminar

Prepare yourself for the trip of your life IF you are a lover of great food, wine and history.

You are going to see Burgundy the way few Americans will ever see Burgundy…and I know that when you are done you will love this area, her wines, her food and most importantly, her people.

Our friends and guides to this wonderful adventure are Tom Hamilton and Athlyn Fitzjames. They are Canadian ex–pats who have lived in Burgundy for 20 years and we are unabashedly taking advantage of their exclusive relationships with their neighbors to create a truly memorable set of experiences for you.

Gaze upon our agenda of experiences and imagine yourself in food and wine paradise!

1. Ma Cuisine

Fabienne and Pierre Escoffier established the bistro, Ma Cuisine, in 1999. Before that Fabienne had been a sommelier in her father’s Michelin two–star restaurant and Pierre was running the finest wine rare wine store in Burgundy.

They saw the need in Beaune for a simple but good restaurant that focused on great wine at affordable prices. A place where all their friends, the best growers in France, could come and enjoy excellent wines (their own and others) with a dependable meal.

So Fabienne switched roles and took over the cooking. Pierre assumed charge of the service and the wine. And unlike a normal French restaurant, they hired no staff except a dishwasher and kept things small, only what they could handle themselves. 35 places for lunch and dinner and no second seatings. They closed weekends and Wednesdays when their children were off school and it became clear very quickly that if you didn’t reserve, no matter who you were, then there would be no table free. Wine was sold at the ex–cellar price from their rare wine store and it allowed people to drink extremely well and leave with a manageable bill. It was an instant success and the place to be seen in Beaune.

It is the hardest reservation in Burgundy and ours privately for the night.

2. Visit to the Fallot Mustard Producer

Mustard has been around for thousands of years, made from the crushed seeds of the mustard plant. At first the seeds were mixed with vinegar and nothing else but in the Middle Ages, when Dijon became the center of mustard making in France, the seeds were mixed with grape must, hence the name “mustard”. In French, moutarde lost the “s” in the 17th century.

Dijon lay along the Roman spice route from the East and when routes changed after the Fall of the Roman Empire, the local people, accustomed to spicy foods looked for an alternative. They found it in the wild mustard which then grew throughout the region. Mustard made it possible to eat the eternal salt meat of the Middle Ages. Spices and honey were added to mustard in the 13th century, chilies appeared at the end of the Renaissance and in the 17th century, mustard flavored with vanilla and floral fragrances such as orange, violet and rose were popular. The 18th century saw the advent of mustard with capers, anchovies and champagne “for the ladies”.

Dijon mustard is known throughout the world and can be made anywhere and still be labeled “Dijon” as long as the specific recipe is followed. Although the modern Amora factory in Dijon still produces the greatest amount of mustard in the world, to our taste the best Dijon mustard is actually made in Beaune at Fallot, a tiny artisanal producer on the Route de Pommard.

Here, the same stone wheel has been used to crush the mustard seeds since 1840 and the various flavored mustards are hand mixed in huge crocks. We will enjoy a private tour of their mustard making facilities, taste the numerous flavors and even blend our own personal mustards to take home with us.

3. Domaine Prieur

The name of the village of Meursault comes from the Latin muris saltus (jumping rat), recalling the original name for the marsh which once separated the area of the Cte de Beaune from the Cte de Meursault. The village is dominated by the Gothic tower of its church and although most of its wine is white, it does make a bit of red which is sold under the Volnay Santenots appellation.

There are many big name producers in Meursault but one of the top ones is Domaine Jacques Prieur. For years this estate lumbered along under the control of Georges Prieur who, despite being a very likeable guy, had the ambition of a sloth. Rather than work at his potentially excellent vineyards, he preferred to do the least work possible, sell off the grapes to other producers and spend his time and money on a string of wives, girlfriends and gambling locales.

Luckily, his son, Martin arrived just in time to save things.

Martin had all the drive, ambition (and intelligence?) that his father lacked. He married Josephine Hennessy (last name ring a bell?) who was a powerhouse herself and the two of them brought the estate up to its incredible present level. They own vineyards from grand crus up in Gevrey–Chambertin all the way down to its most famous grand cru Le Montrachet which received a perfect 100 score from The Wine Spectator. They make 39 different wines and we will taste a lot of them.

Then Martin and Josephine will host us to lunch in their garden and chateau.

4. Chateau de Sully

Of the thousands of chateaux throughout France the Chateau de Sully is renowned as one of the most beautiful. This 16th C Renaissance chateau is enormous with multiple wings, monumental staircase, facades from various centuries, a moat and huge turrets enclosing what is reputed to be the most magnificent courtyard of any property in the entire country. It is here, in what she calls “the prettiest room in the house” that we will have drinks and dinner with our friend Amelie de MacMahon, the Duchess of Magenta.

Amelie is actually Scots but by marrying her husband (now dead) Philippe she became entitled to the title of Duchess through his family line which started with the first Duke of Magenta under Napoleon. The story goes that this famous general fought so bravely that the river ran with the color of the enemy’s blood turning it magenta and so the title was born.

Luckily, Amelie also owns some of the best vineyards of Puligny–Montrachet under the name of Marquis de Laguiche and so our dinner will be well “watered”.

5. Wines of Corton with Count Philippe Senard

A geological map of Burgundy shows that it’s all about the soil. A huge chunk of rocky limestone pops up in Puligny and Chassagne producing a patch of grands crus and then goes underground again only to re–emerge in the village of Aloxe–Corton as a quite obvious hill/mountain where another grouping of grands crus can be found.

This is where our friend, Count Philippe Senard makes him home and where his family has continuously made wine since 1857. The domaine now produces 5 red and 2 white grand crus within the appellation of Corton and we will try all of them with Philippe, visit and taste in his 13th century wine cellar that was hidden from the Nazis during WWII and enjoy lunch on his estate.

6. Dinner at the Hospices de Beaune

The most important site in Beaune is the Htel Dieu, an ancient charity hospital, one of five in the city, which were collectively called the Hospices de Beaune. The Htel Dieu was founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, the Chancellor of the Duke of Burgundy for the purpose of caring for the sick who were too poor to afford proper care. No matter what anyone tells you it was never a plague or leper hospital since these were always established outside the walls of a city.

However, shortly after its foundation, the Htel Dieu became intimately connected with the wine trade which runs the city. Over the years it became “vogue” for vineyard owners to will portions of their land holdings to the Htel Dieu as a gesture of charity. Consequently the humble hospital has become one of the largest vineyard proprietors in Burgundy, presently owning some 143 acres of vineyards from Chablis to Puligny–Montrachet. Considering that on average, winemakers in Burgundy own 4 acres, a holding of 143 acres is substantial.

The two highlights of the visit are the Salle des Pôvres, the original ward where the patients lived, and the Last Judgement altarpiece painted by Roger Van Der Weyden. Although the Htel Dieu was in use as a hospital until 1971, the kitchen, the apothecary and laundry room have been reconstructed as they would have looked in the 15th century.

But the real highlight will be our private dinner here in what is known as “The King’s Bedroom”, an elegant and historic spot for our final night.

7. Clos de Vougeot

Vougeot has been under continuous cultivation since the year 1106 and the Clos de Vougeot is among the most famous of all wines. At 125 acres the Clos de Vougeot is also the largest of all Burgundy grands crus, producing an annual output of 16,500 cases. The Clos of the name indicates that the vineyard is completely enclosed, in this case by a stone wall and contained within the enclosure is its famous chteau begun by the Cistercian monks in the 12th C. By the 15th C, the vineyards were enclosed by a defensive wall which forms the modern enclosure. In 1789 the vineyards were confiscated from the monks by the state and sold off to the public and the chateau is now owned by the Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin. We will visit and taste its famous wine out in the actual vineyards where it is made.

8. What Burgundy Wine with What Burgundy Cheeses?

Ami de Chambertin is a rich creamy cheese from Gevrey–Chambertin soaked in local eau de vie for several days. Cteaux is a pungent soft–centered cheese from the abbey of Cteaux where it has been made for over 900 years. Epoisses is a strong cow’s milk cheese, wrapped in vine leaves. Comt is a hard fairly mild cheese from the nearby Jura mountains. Chvres are goat cheeses. Some are tiny and hard, the size and shape of a thimble and are rolled in ashes. Others are like pyramids and fresh and soft. They are so region specific that you won’t see exactly the same goat cheeses from one town to the next.

Some match best with white wines, others with young reds while still others need an old red or a sparkling wine. We’ll learn the tips on how to pair the proper wines with the proper cheeses.

9. Domaine Chris Newman

Chris Newman is big, jovial, guy from New Orleans with a southern accent and a gentleman’s approach to life and a fortune based on oil to allow him to live in style. He has spent almost all his life in Europe, first at the exclusive Le Rosay School in Switzerland then at his family’s castle in Austria then all over Italy, France, Germany and Spain wherever good wine could be found.

His father bought vineyards just after the war when things were cheap and so now Chris finds himself owner of vines which no American would be allowed to buy and which few people could afford. Several grands crus from Gevrey–Chambertine head the list and we will enjoy them in Chris’s wine cellar and then in his garden as he hosts us to lunch at his lovely house in Beaune.

Domaine de la Vougeraie

Boisset, the biggest negociant in Burgundy owns la Vougeraie but it is nonetheless the private fife of Pascal Marchand.

Pascal is a French–Canadian who came to Burgundy in 1981 for the first time to take part in the grape harvest. He knew absolutely nothing about wine but fell in love with the region and went back to Montreal determined to change his life.

He quit his job, sold all his possessions and enrolled in the Wine School in Beaune. The two year course taught him the science of making wine but everyone admits that Pascal came with the passion and the “touch” that very few winemakers have despite being raised in the profession.

He got a lucky break in 1984, right out of school when he met the Count Armand, a wealthy lawyer who owned an under–performing plot of land in Pommard. For no reason that anyone could understand the Count trusted this young foreign student with his vineyard and within 5 years Pascal has the Clos des Epeneaux on the map as the Wine Spectator’s Year’s Best Red Wine in 1990.

He was hired away by Boisset who had all the money in the world to buy vineyards and lots to pay as a salary but Pascal made it perfectly clear that if he was going to create a flagship label for this rich but rather unrespectable operation, he was going to run it his way.

And he has. You will taste the result and meet this friendly Quebecois who seems to be able to perform magic with wine.

10. Cooking with Chef Laurent Parra

Laurent’s great–grandfather was a chef as was his grandfather and his father who owned the famous Michelin–2–star establishment L’Hermitage de Corton. Through these connection Laurent was able to serve in the kitchen with many of the great 3–star chefs Lameloise, Loiseau, Bocuse, Senderan, Troisgros before coming back to second his father on the outskirts of Beaune.

But Laurent decided not to take over his father’s restaurant, making his own way with the intimate 20 seat Le Parradox and then his larger Le Conty in the middle of Beaune. With this talented young chef we will cook up a storm and have some fun.

11. Please Join Me For a Magic Week in France

Sounds like a magic week, non? Personally I can’t wait…I’ve been to Burgundy on bike, car, bus and foot, and I can tell you that you’re in for an experience of a lifetime.

I promise that when the final day arrives you will NOT be saying goodbye to Burgundy, but “hello” to a new favorite place in the world that you will visit again.

When the week is over you will have experienced in a few days what would take years to otherwise do—and that’s what our European Wine Dine and Stocks Seminars are all about.

Plus you will meet fellow ChangeWave people that will become travel buddies for life.

I look forward to sharing this great adventure with you

Toby