Burgundy – continued

Sunday’s crowning glory was the feast at the Hotel Dieu, the medieval almshouse otherwise known as the Hospices, a thrilling masterpiece of late Gothic architecture with its distinctive polychromatic Burgundian tiled roof. The Hospices de Beaune is a charity founded by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor of Burgundy, in 1443, a man famed far and wide for his ability to extort money from the well-to-do. So much so that King Louis XI remarked that “having made so many people poor and homeless he could well afford to make his peace with the Almighty by providing for some of them.” Rolin started the process which underpins the Hospices’ finances even today; he endowed a parcel of land on which to grow grapes and others followed his example, down to Maurice Drouhin who, in the 20th century, bequeathed some of his finest plots. Sale of the Hospices wines was originally conducted by private treaty but in 1851 the foundation decided to hold an auction, starting a custom that’s been observed annually ever since. This now takes place in the less characterful but more commodious covered market. Prices fetched are generally inflated, partly from charitable motives but also because of the publicity value – in the manner of a butcher buying the Supreme Champion Aberdeen Angus at London’s Smithfield Cattle Show prominent restaurateurs are eager to cash in on the cachet. The negotiants watch anxiously, for the Beaune prices, while not definitive, give a clue as to the worth of the current Burgundy vintage.
The feast takes place in the bastion, beneath the Hôtel Dieu, with an overflow room upstairs; a total of almost 1000 guests are accommodated. We were treated to an eight-course banquet, with wines to accompany five, plus choice of a Marc de Bourgogne, the fiery ‘brandy’ of the region or a prunelle, as digestif. The left-hand side of the king-size parchment menu listed all the Hospices wines, 30-something in total. If you wished to taste any (or all!) of these you simply wrote your selection down on your place card and handed it to the waitress. At one point Findlater’s Maureen O’Hara and I had six glasses in front of us – each! Of course many of the wines were too young and all were hard to appraise, overwhelmed as they were by the occasion. I do remember being particularly impressed by our host’s Mazis-Chambertin and by Le Corton but then, to paraphrase Dr. Johnson, the man who couldn’t appreciate Le Corton couldn’t appreciate life itself. The cabaret that accompanied the feast was another thing of wonder; a jazzband rooted in the tradition of Sidney Bechet and Claude Luther; a leather-aproned male voice choir culled from the growers; and a brilliant chanteuse/comédienne who demanded audience participation, plucking diners from their seats to dance or take part in a mime. The night was punctuated by regular choruses of ‘Le bon Bourguignon’, a drinking song popular with the locals. Of course things couldn’t end there; at the conclusion, guests spilled out into the town’s restaurants and wine bars to drink yet more.

Unbelievably, next day we were up with the lark and on the road north to Chablis. We travelled in three Espaces, the first booted along by adrenalin-fuelled Bruno from Bouchard who fancied himself an F1 ace; Catherine hustled to keep up with him while we brought up the rear, entrusting our safety to a young Japanese whose first drive on French roads was further complicated by the fact that, back in Tokyo, he drove an automatic. Verily, a hair-raising ride.
William Fèvre is quite a name in Chablis; a man who led the fightback towards quality after the depredations of the late sixties when want of pride and general dilapidation combined to damage the wine’s reputation. He also pursued relentlessly the counterfeiters who, by their actions, debased the good name. In Fèvre’s mock period château we found an amusing collection of ‘Chablis’ bottles from all over the world. William was a hard act to follow until Joseph Henriot, who had acquired the business, parachuted in a young régisseur, Didier Séguier from their subsidiary Bouchard Père et Fils. Didier set about revitalising the Domaine, changing the style to make wines that are very much his own ‘handwriting’. We tasted over a dozen of the 2002 vintage, from the humble Domaine Chablis to the Grands Crus. At several stages during the tasting I found myself slipping back for a sip of the core product. It was reassuringly good and, what’s more, manifestly in the house style, rather like being at a wedding where relatives, close or distant, could be identified by a pattern of speech or the curve of an eyebrow. Spot on fruit/acid balance was a constant and there were other family features. The five Grands Crus were distinctively different – my preference, as always, big, buttery Vaudésir with its heather and hymetus honey notes and pronounced lime overtones, in contrast to the lemon of the other four.
Chablis is hilly and chilly, denigrated even by the Beauneois in our party as “little Siberia” but it meant something to drink one of your favourite wines and, afterwards, stand on the slope where it gestated.
All in all, a heroic trip. The following week in the office, chastened by boring Dublin 2 sandwiches and vile coffee, was a nightmare. For diversion I recalled that first evening in Beaune when I relished a plate of crème de foie gras with good bread and a glass of Volnay-Santenots 1997. It cost e11.40. What am I doing here?