I like to travel but have some specifications that make travel more fun and less stressful. Even though I am usually a control freak, when I travel, I like to enjoy more and navigate less. Because I travel alone and in deference to my enthusiasm for being led around, I prefer trips arranged, preferably by the alumni travel office of my university, with a relatively small group of travelers who like to learn and to places I have never been. I also prefer 10-day trips on a ship or boat, so I only have to unpack once.
The trip I chose for this spring met most of my criteria. It was a university trip to Burgundy, a place I had never visited. It lasted for 8 days with a group of 14 travelers. Even though it was on land, I only had to unpack twice because we stayed at two hotels, one in Paris and one in Beaune.
I enjoy wine but am very far from being an expert. This wine tasting trip was designed to teach me to appreciate wine at a higher level. The primary wines in Burgundy, according to our tour guides, are Chablis, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir. Surprisingly, many of the owners have California or Oregon connections.
We visited 7 vineyards for wine tasting, from the very old to the very new, where wine is fermented in stainless steel containers rather than large oak barrels. We tasted six wines at every vineyard, including William Fevre, Chateau de Pommard, Chateau de Mersault, Domaine Evenstad, Olivier Leflaive, Clos des Mouches, Domaine Dulac, and JC Boisset. We had five lunches and two dinners, each with at least four wines. I actually took one day away from the tour to explore and to detox. The trip concluded with a visit to the Saturday market, with meats, breads, cheeses, flowers, clothing, old knives, and deliciously ripe fruits and vegetables, including, of course, white asparagus.
This tour was special because we had a professor who specializes in the history and symbolism of food in French history. I had never heard of a Harlequin, which combines on one plate the leftovers from the tables of the rich to sell to the poor. Combining food is anathema to the French because they believe food should be served in three distinct courses. Can you imagine leftovers consisting of fish, chicken, salad, vegetables, and dessert all globbed together, bones included, after sitting all night? Not surprisingly there was a French Revolution!
We also had as our tour guides two charming Irishmen, one who arranges wine tours all over the world and one who has written several books on wine and lives in Beaune. We, for example, had lunch in a wine cellar at one of the wineries and one tasting that concluded with a $14,000 bottle of wine, only possible because of the tour guides’ long-standing friendship with one of the owners.
On this trip, I learned how risky the business of wine making can be. The wine makers with the highest quality standards hand-pick the grapes and then hand sort the grapes before they are pressed. During the growing season, the vines have to be carefully and periodically checked to ensure the correct number of grapes are growing in the most desirable direction. During the winter months, the grapes must be carefully pruned. Obviously, the weather can make the difference between a successful harvest and a poor harvest, with only 35% of the expected production. Yet, the vineyards in Burgundy are very expensive, running well into the millions even for a plot.
Climate change is recognized by some of the owners. The grapes, for example, ripen faster with hotter temperatures, even requiring picking as early as mid-August. One grower allows grass to grow between the rows to help deflect the heat from the vines.
For me, the best part of the trip is my fellow travelers. On this trip, we had travelers from Lithuania, South Korea, Singapore, Finland, California, and Wyoming. Some were experts, and all were engaging. We were lawyers, physicians, and business people, but we were all there to experience and learn.
My parting advice. Decide what is important to you and then, and only then, plan accordingly.
