 |
| Barrel making at the first winery we visited |
 |
| My favourite vigneron place |
Parce que le
dimanche faisait beau, Bev a voulu faire du vélo. Nous avons rencontré Renaud et Anaïs avant
notre départ pour le location du vélo et il a fait une suggestion de une dégustation
à la petit village, Savigny les Beaune.
Nous avons pensé que il aurait été une bonne idée si il y avait pas les vélos
louer. Malheureusement, nous avons trouvé
que tout le monde pensaient aussi que il faisait un bon jour pour faire du vélo
et ils ont loué tous les vélos. Donc,
nous sommes allé le dégustation au village de Savigny-les-Beaune. Il était une bonne idée alors que nous avons
eu un fois merveilleux ont gouté quelque
vins de la appellation.
Sunday dawned clear and bright. Bev really wanted to go cycling and I had
finally found a bike rental company from which to rent bikes for a day.
Before we went to the bike shop we called
into introduce ourselves to Renaud and Anaïs (our Airbnb hosts). Renaud was very enthusiastic and gave us a
warm welcome and between my French and his English we had a nice but brief
conversation. I do wish that I was more comfortable speaking and pronouncing
French. He recommended a restaurant for
a meal and also said that the village next door to Ladoix-Serrigny was having a
degustation that day and that the cost was only about 5 Euros each. So we kept that in mind when we went to find
the bike shop to hire our bikes.
 |
| This is really a village of vines - just budding now |
When we got to the bike shop we found that
they had all been hired out for the day and that we should have booked the
bikes earlier. Never mind, we had the
alternative. I had seen the directions
to Savigny-les-Beaune where the tasting was happening. It turned out that the cost of a couple of
glasses and holder for them was €4,50 each. A bargain - and that gave access to all the
wines that were being tasted in that small appellation. We were very happy as you can imagine. Not only were we in a picture perfect village
but we got to try a number of wines. As
I had to drive, we were rather restricted with how many we could do and even
though I spit, the amount of alcohol absorbed through the mouth is quite
substantial.
 |
| It's very cute |
It seemed that at most of the wineries the
people serving the wine were disinterested in the people visiting except when they
knew the people, however at one winery I was able to talk in French (but with difficulty) with a vigneron who
showed me a whole range of his wines which were very nice. They were different
to NZ Pinot Noir but extremely nice at very reasonable prices. I was tempted to buy some but that meant either
carrying them back to NZ with me or trying to drink them in the interim –
neither option an altogether practical solution.
The other delight was a Cremant de
Bourgogne we tried which is the Burgundy version of Champagne. They are the same
grapes and use the same process to create the wine, but at quarter of the
price.
There is a Chateau in village called of
course Chateau de Savigny. Bev was keen
to visit, having never seen a chateau. It turned out to be a car museum with a few
retired aeroplanes such as an F16,
Starfighter and Mirage III. There were
also a whole lot of model aircraft and more motorbikes – more than I really
needed to see. The Chateau was in poor
repair but we had a look around anyway.
There must have been a Triumph rally because there were a whole lot of
vintage and later model Triumph sports cars parked in the grounds outside the
Chateau. Some of you will remember the
TR7 for instance.
By the end of the day we had both had
enough so we organised our meal at a restaurant recommended by Renaud. Unfortunately the food was not the best – I
suppose it was reasonable value but it was a bit of a disappointment.
 |
| Entertainment for the children |
 |
| Human effort powers the merry-go-round |
No comments:
Post a Comment