Krispé et moi en Bourgogne

after 1 and 1/2 harvests in napa, i jetted off to france for a 2-week vacation and to meet up with danielle in paris and kirsty in burgundy. unfortunately, i landed smack in the middle of the metro/train strike which forced me to take a 90 euro, 3-hour cab ride into paris. by the time i got on the train set for nuits-st. george a few days later, i had absolutely had it with paris...all the traffic, the saga of finding cabs, the almost 7-hour train ride from normandy back to paris (which should take 2.5 hours)...c'est chiant mais c'est paris.

well, at least danielle, kindra, and i did make it to bayeux in normandy for a couple of days. wish i could spend more time in that area...eating butter slathered apples while drinking calvados...next time. i was glad to still be able to do the half day tour of the d-day landing sites, especially pointe du hoc (where the rangers scaled the cliff) which still has all the pockmarks from the allied shells.

and then i made my way down to my beloved burgundy to meet up with kirsty or krispé or kurty depending on who you talk to at domaine faiveley where she had her internship. it was vachement bien to see kirsty and, especially, to catch up again. we just had fun tooling around burgundy. we made it to beaune several times to taste at maison champy (sadly all the 2005
pinots have sold out but i did score the corton-charlemagne that i helped make), to shop at the amazing saturday market, to eat at caves madelaine (my all-time favorite beaune restaurant), etc. we did take a very nice long walk from nuits-st. georges (where she's staying) all the way to clos de vougeot, passing romanée-conti on the way.
we were also good and cooked a lot of meals so as not to spend our life-savings on meals out (that dammed dollar). we made a delicious thanksgiving meal with chicken, peas, polenta, and lardons (yummy pieces of thick-cut bacon) that went quite well with some patz&hall pinot that i had brought along. below, kirsty is modeling our big can of cassoulet and duck confit (which you all know is one of my all-time top ten dishes).
sadly, we didn't get to a lot of winery visits and tastings. next time, we'll plan months in advance and have an exact itinerary all worked out (hahah...we'll see) but we did manage to polish off at least 1 bottle of wine pretty much each night. i couldn't reach jean-baptiste at domaine jean-claude bachelet et fils (i'll get you next time j-b), but at least i could try one of their st. aubin chardonnays at la cabotte, a delicious restaurant in nuits-st. george. interestingly enough, a vigneron from nuits-st. george was entertaining an american guest who turns out to be the son of robert haas from tablas creek. they very kindly shared their 1966 château palmer, which was still unbelievably fresh for being a little over 40-years old. no tears yet though, because kirsty and i did make up for it in good form by scoring 2 tickets to le grand tasting in paris organized by bettane et dessauve (vin de france journalists) from dimitri at maison champy. we tasted all over france and even into italy. sadly, our palettes now favor the fresh acidity found in burgundies so we found the rhône wines lacking and disappointing. happily, the sauternes premier crus and champagnes made up for it!

now, i'm back in napa and facing the grim reality of a vacation ended. oh well, at least i found potential new homes in burgundy that i'll try to make into a pretty reality in a few years!no post about a wine region would be complete without the requisite vine photos so here you go. some of domaine faiveley's vines with kirsty's impeccable calligraphy on the yellow tags, followed by 2nd crop still hanging pretty, and by far the smallest basket press (literally it's sitting on a metal bookshelf) to add to my tiny winery that's still in the works.