Owls and Vines: Dijon Day 2 (15 Sep 2013)

With just one full day in a Dijon we had to make a big decision about how to spend it – and it was to spend the morning doing a self-guided historic walk around town and the afternoon on a Bourgogne wine tour. So, here goes … It will be a bit long, so skip to the photos and videos if you like!

The Owl’s Trail

First, a bit of history. Originally a Roman settlement – funny that! – Dijon became, during Mediaeval and Renaissance times, the home of the Dukes of Burgundy. It was a place of great wealth and power (another one!) and, according to Wikipedia, an important “centre of art, learning and science”. Most of the historic buildings we saw came from these centuries.

Second, why the owl? Well, the owl, la chouette, is the local symbol of good luck. There’s an owl carved on the stone wall of a church. It’s a tradition to rub the owl with your left hand and make a wish. Oops, we rubbed the owl but Sue at least forgot to make a wish. Does that mean general good luck will come her way?

Finally, the walk. Here’s how it works. There are lovely little metal owls embedded in the footpath. You just follow them. At each point of interest there is a large owl with a number corresponding to the description in the booklet, which cost €3 (English language available) at the tourist office.

The walk has 22 stops. There are three additional loops, identified by a flying owl in the footpath and the points of interest by a letter rather than number. All very efficient. We didn’t get time to do any of the loops. We were told an hour for the walk but after well over 2 hours we hadn’t quite finished the main walk (missing, really, only one point.

It was a great walk, but we’ll just give some highlights:

• Notre Dame Cathedral: 13th century church with an unusual facade containing rows of false gargoyles (there’s a story for this) and its Jacquemart clock (which also has a story)
• The little owl, of course
• 13th-16th century buildings on Rue des Forges, including Renaissance decorated 1560 Mayor’s house, Maison Maillard.
• Maison Millière: 1483 house which is a good example of the wooden-beamed wall construction style.
• Palais des Ducs/Tour Philippe Le Bon/Place de la Libération: The Place was apparently designed for an equestrian statue of Louis XIV. But, where was it? We’ve seen many men on horses this trip, but on our several walks through this Place hadn’t seen one. Time to read the notes! Ah, it was melted down by revolutionaries in 1792 to make canons! Pauvre Louis Quatorze! From our point of view, the Place hasn’t really suffered from its absence.
• Saint-Bénigne: the famous church with the polychromatic roof, something not unique to the church but the church’s is distinctive. We went into the church and caught the end of a special mass for the Dijon Festival, a 10-day folklore festival that occurs in early September. Folk groups come from over 30 countries to sing and dance. At the end of the service the various groups paraded out of the church in national costume, behind flags identifying them. Fascinating.
• The Art Nouveau building next to the post office. Loved it. It reminded us of Barcelona!

There’s more but that’s probably enough, because then it was lunch and off on our …

“Charm” winery tour

This was a small group tour comprising 8 people, and led by an American who’s lived in France for 20 years. It lasted nearly 5 hours and took us from Dijon to Beaune. We leant a lot, and again will dot point the main things that interested us:

• Two “languages” only are spoken in Bourgogne – Pinot Noir and Chadonnay (woo hoo)! This is why you don’t see grape varieties on their bottles. If it’s from Bourgogne and it’s white, it must be Chardonnay. (Wikipedia says that some sub-regions produce Gamay and Aligoté wines, but they’re not apparently regarded as true “burgundies”).
• All vineyards are delineated by their terroir and the resulting categories last for centuries. Many in fact were defined in mediaeval times by the Cistercian and other monks. The categories are Regional, Village, Premier or 1er Cru, Grand Cru. You can tell by the label which category the wine is: Grand Cru and 1er Cru have those words on the label (with the name of the village); Village wines have the name of the village; and regional wines have Bourgogne on them. Remember Sue’s wine in the previous post? A Bourgogne!
• This classification of vineyards relates also to appellation (AOC). Bourgogne has the smallest appellation in France, a vineyard that’s only .7 hectare, called Romanée. (Wikipedia says Romanée-Conti is 1.76 hectares.)
• People buying wines from Bourgogne do not care about the winemaker. They only care about the Village. Apparently, the winemaker’s role is minimal. The important thing is the terroir (and those four categories). If a village in Bourgogne has a hyphenated name that means it has at least one Grand Cru vineyard; the vineyard’s name is placed after the hyphen.
• The Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin (Brotherhood of the Knights of the Wine-Tasting Cup) is an exclusive club of Burgundy wine enthusiasts. It was founded in 1703 and its  headquarters are in the Château du Clos de Vougeot which was created by the Cistercian monks in 1336. This Clos is the region’s largest wall-surrounded vineyard. The Cistercians were among the first to notice the difference between vineyards which led to the idea of terroir.
• If you’re French but don’t live in Champagne, you too cannot call your sparkling wine Champagne.  You call it Crémant (if you use the méthode champenoise).

After all this we got to taste, in a dark atmospheric cellar, three whites and three reds. The whites were a Village, and two 1er Cru, while the reds were two 1er Cru and, because ours was the Charm tour, one Grand Cru. It was lovely and was, if we remember correctly, €75 per bottle. Our favourite white was €57 per bottle. That’s not cheap either!

The tour ended with a free hour in the very pretty village of Beaune which regards itself as the wine centre of Bourgogne. And, since Bourgogne regards itself as the wine centre if the world, then Beaune is … At least that’s what we heard one tour guide say as we wandered the town and its ramparts.

All in all a fascinating tour …

Regional specialties

While mustard really didn’t seem to be a regional specialty, there are several and we managed to try a few:

• Kir l’Aligote and Kir Royale: Cocktail mixing the sour cherry liqueur Kir with either l’Aligote white wine or sparkling (to make Kir Royale). Sue tried the former but, as she expected, it’s not really her thing.
• Escargots: Len had Ravioli with Escargots at Carpe Diem
• Boeuf Bourgogne: Len had this at La Comédie
• Choux Pastries (Savoury): Given to us at Carpe Diem
• Coq au vin: Didn’t get to try
• Jambon Persillé (Parslied ham): Didn’t get to try
• Les anis de Flavigny (little aniseed drops): We were given a sample on the ride home from our tour.

Dijon, c’est bon!

Three-words

SUE: Walking, Wine Tasting
LEN: Hoot, Hoot, Hoot

and the slides…

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and the movies…

Panorama of the Place de la Liberte, Dijon