Wine and Water in Bourgogne

Paris departure all worked very well, despite the train strike day. This is not a general strike, it's only on selected days here and there but on a regular basis, and with a reduction in service frequency, so not all trains are cancelled and the drop in frequency on the Metro seems to make little difference, thank goodness. But the presence of riot police is pervasive with columns of up to 20 vans and plenty of police donning riot protection gear.

Our two Metro connections were instantaneous at both stations. Gare de Lyon was very crowded, but it was encouraging to see our train up on the schedule board, and at the scheduled departure time. Although we did have an email about 10 days ago to confirm that the service was going to run. We boarded on time at Voie 13, got our bags securely installed in the baggage compartment, which was already being occupied by a family complete with a couple of pushchairs who obviously didn’t have seats. We occupied our “family” seating and settled in for the two hour trip on a fast, comfortable train.

It's springtime here, plenty of crop planting and some of the early crops of canola and winter wheat were already being harvested as the countryside flashed past. It’s mainly rolling country, and the farmers seem to leave many of the hill crests with their forest cover, so it’s a very picturesque and varied landscape. Some of the farm houses and surrounding buildings and pens, all built in stone are very impressive. Some evidence of those horrible and intrusive wind turbines also flashed past but no large scale developments to be seen on this trip.

We had a train change at Dijon, and there was no evidence of our train on the board. There was one about 40 minutes later to Beaune, so I went to see the help person and got a very abrupt summary of the options, in a very French accent. “We have the strike, you catch the next train”. Lots of people milling around, and the train to Beaune was very crowded, Choco and I stood guarding the pile of luggage for the 20 minute trip and the girls did get a seat.

We are now in wine country, Cotes de Nuits, Cote de Beaune and then all the little villages and walled vineyards. The vines have a good spurt of growth, more than when we were here at the same time two years ago when it was very cool.

The Ibis Styles hotel is just a 700 metre walk from the Gare in warm sunshine. We took the time while there to book our next trip back to Joigny on Sunday for canal boat preparations. We had to do that on a machine as the staff were all away on strike for the afternoon.

We dropped the bags and went into town for the re-familiarisation tour and drink, there are lots of lovely shops, a big focus on the world of wine and its associated paraphernalia. It’s lucky we are travelling and have restricted space otherwise we’d be buying lots of stuff we really don’t need and would have to carry around. 

When we were here two years ago we tried to eat at a restaurant Caves Madeleine and couldn’t get a booking. This time we breezed in and got a lovely table and had a very relaxed and enjoyable evening and some fantastic food. The walk home was just a few minutes on a very pleasant and warm evening.

On Saturday there is a big market in the town square so we had a good wander around in the bric a brac bit and then into the food area. The food presentation is terrific, and the vegetables and meat are particularly well done.

Our first scheduled activity was a tasting we’d booked at a place Ross and Michelle found when they were here on holiday in their London living phase. La Cave de L’Ange Gardien is a wine retailer and we’d booked for their wine tasting session. Our host was Pierre Jaboulet-Vercherre, and his wife Nicole did a tasting with another group alongside us.

We blind tasted five Chardonnays, five Pinot Noirs, a cremant, a cassis, and a kir. The tasting was blind, and we learned lots about wine, or perhaps Pierre’s philosophy around wine and using the nose a bit differently for the organoleptic assessment of the aroma of the wine. So listen up now, it’s your right nostril for the “flowery” notes, your left nostril for the “fruity” notes, and both at the same time for the mineral components.

There was quite a range in the Chardonnays, we all picked the same wine as our ‘top of the list favourite’. Remember this was a blind tasting session, we didn’t know anything about the wine, but our No 1 was a Premiere Grand Cru the most expensive and around 90 Euros thanks.

                                    

                                    

The Pinots were all lovely, but quite a lot of variation, all to do with terroir and climate. Pierre is fifth generation in the wine industry, the family has some vineyards, but I think they are bulk sellers at that level, and concentrate on retail and trading. What did we learn, is that the Americans particularly and the rest of the New World have it all wrong, they are doing this stuff for money and it’s all about volume, not quality.

So he’s a bit of a purist but very informative, wine and lifestyle are interlinked. So over the two and a half hour tasting we heard about wine and its benefits in relationships, weight control, food matching, a healthy sex life, avoiding Alzheimers, avoiding arguments and divorce and so preserving the family fortune. We bought a few bottles to take onto the boat so we should stay be able to maintain our current relationships for another week or so.

                                      

The afternoon tasting at Bouchard Pere and Fils was quite different and much more the traditional winery approach, which was a welcome variation on the morning session. We toured the 180 year old cellars which had previously been used for garrisoning troops and contained an armoury. The oldest vintages were from 1846 when the operation was set up by the Bouchard family. The family no longer own it, it is part of one of the large French conglomerates, but they still try to retain the family feel. The cellar stores about two million bottles, including recent harvests waiting for their trip to market.

                                                       

The marque owns 130 ha of vineyards, mostly around Beaune, and produces about 600 000 bottles in a good year. The grounds include the original family chateau which is now their holiday home, with some lovely gardens to employ five gardeners from the local community.

Claire took us through a tasting of five Pinot Noirs and three Chardonnays, each with something a little different. The tasting was 45 Euro each, so you need to be keen on your wines to come here! The wines included Premiere Grande Crus and we looked at the location of growth for each of them. Some were a little different, a Chardonnay for instance from a plot right in the middle of a Pinot Noir area.

The whole appellation thing in this part of the world is very complex, and the rules are pretty stringently applied. These wines command some pretty high prices so you could argue they are doing the right things to retain their traditions and their quality. Vive La France.

We walked across the road from the hotel to Caveau des Arches, a very nice ambiance and dining areas down in some very nouveaux caves. We took the traditional Plats, the food was ok, but after a second encounter with some pretty chewy steak, I think I’ll avoid that from now on. For something costing 30 Euros or so, I expect better. I’d be embarrassed to serve something like that to guests. The diners at the table next to us arrived with their dog, I wasn’t at all impressed with that either. They were Poms not locals, but sharing restaurant space with a dog is not in my “that’s OK” list.

Sunday dawned another lovely warm day, hot air balloons in the sky out the window and a bit of breeze which seems to be the normal situation in these parts. We walked the ramparts of the old town and did a bit of last minute shopping. We had some four year old Beaufort cheese and a very nice salami we picked up at the market yesterday for a picnic lunch on the train.

We left the hotel to walk the 700m to the Gare, only to find when we got there that the train was retard 30 minutes. This fairly quickly became 40 minutes, then 50 minutes and finally an hour which we seem to have held for about 20 minutes now, so it will probably happen. The picnic happened on the platform, not many people around and the trains heading the other direction to Lyon Part Dieu seem to be very sparsely populated.

Our train was totally retard when we got to Dijon. They got us all off the train and we then had to wait an hour for the next train heading in our direction. A little frustrating but nothing that we can do about it. Eventually we got to Joigny and walked the 1.5 km to our Hotel Rive Gauche. Locaboat is just 100 meters down the road from the hotel, so that was pretty handy.

The town has two distinct sides. The rive gauche is more modern with supermarkets, the gare, and a more migrant feel and the other more historic side over the river.  We walked across the river into town which was fairly active, and was just shutting down and cleaning up after a motor show. There was still a good range of vintage, classic and modern cars. There wasn’t much open in the village, and certainly no reasonable looking restaurants or cafes. So dinner became peanuts, a couple of pizzas and a few beers on the riverside. The hotel had a small pond and as we walked back there was the deafening sound of frogs. Big ones too.

We opted for a relatively early night, and slept pretty well until about 3 00 am when we were woken by a fairly loud bang. There wasn’t any sign of siren activity so that was written off as a “noise in the night”. Choco and Vikki were up early and went for a walk to check out the route to the local Intermarche supermarket. They are generally pretty good and we like a large supermarket to do our houseboat shop. They arrived back with some pictures, and an explanation of the explosion we’d heard. A bunch of ferals had stolen a large dump truck, and had backed it over a large tree and the protective bollards to smash into the front of the supermarket.

Apparently it was the Orange phone shop that was the target. After they had smashed their way in, they then burnt or firebombed the front of the truck so it was incinerated and caused the explosion we heard. So supermarket closed, which left us to shop in the Lidl market over the road, I think it’s an Aldi, or lookalike and as supermarkets go it’s a pretty poor imitation of the real thing. We did a shop but no one was very happy that we’d ended up with everything we needed.

We had done an early morning walk into town and found a coffee and a croissant for breakfast. We then headed into the old town, which had some interesting old buildings with timber framework, sometimes quite elaborately carved.

Our walk took in the church which dominates the village skyline, and has done for 500 years, the cemetery and the views up to “the hill of vines “above the town.

On our way back to the hotel, as we were walking past the Locaboat base, we saw that there was a pennichette 1120R, fitted up with four bikes and looking ready to set off! So we called into the office and completed the paperwork formalities. They wouldn’t hand the boat over until 2 00 pm, but they were happy for us to stow our gear and to borrow a hand trolley to do our shopping.

So we were all complete and back at the boat with everything stowed when Cyril, turned up to refresh us on the boat procedures. This is our fifth 1120R experience, and little has changed in the 10 years since we first started using this boat. In fact the only difference is that the heating has gone from a gas system to a diesel system.

We had a little bit of a rethink on our route and decided to head first down the Canal De Nivernais to Auxerre, then we’d come back up to Migennes and head along the Canal du Bourgogne, which was the original intention.

We got as far as the first ecluse on the canal, la Graviere and decided that we’d better ring the Locaboat service people as our kitchen sink didn’t seem to be draining very well and one of the bathrooms was a bit smelly. We rafted up for the night with another boat from the other company Le Boat that was waiting for a serviceman to appear. Our man appeared and found a problem with the wiring on the wastewater transfer pump, which he remedied, and headed off. The problem seemed solved but appeared again later that evening which was a bit of a disconcerting start.

In the morning it still didn’t seem right so I rang again and arranged for the serviceman to be at the next lock for us. Sounds quite simple, but with my non-existent French and his non-existent English the conversations were fraught! However our intermittent problem had resolved itself and we headed happily south. Auxerre is 17 km and eight locks away, a pretty easy day's travel if all goes well at locks and there are no delays.

At Gurgy we put Choco ashore on a bike to get le pain, as we didn’t want to stop for too long, the mission being to get to Auxerre as early as possible. Travelling times can be a bit tricky, the lock keepers aren’t at work between 12 and 1 00 pm, and they stop operations at 7 00 pm. So your plans have to accommodate that and also the fact that there are some areas where you can’t stop and tie up the boat. We are settling into the 'well-oiled crew' drill, and it was 'locking up', so it’s a bit more stressful than going downstream.

The rest of the trip south to Auxerre was uneventful, travelling through small villages occasionally, Moneteau, Bassou and another ecluse every 2-3 km. We arrived mid-afternoon in Auxerre and found a small slot on the quayside opposite the old town to pull in to. We can spend time in "nature” as the French call it when we just tie up at a convenient spot on the canal. It’s generally very quiet and there is a bit of flora and fauna and the view for entertainment. However at the little ports we can pay a few Euro and connect to power and top up the water tank, so you need to have both options available. You can tie up most places in the canals, but when you are travelling in the rivers you can only tie up in a port, just in case the water level varies and you end up aground. Our anchorage had stunning views of the abbey, the cathedral and an eglise! 

First activity in a new town, visit the tourist office and get a map, this time we picked up the old town self-guided tour map complete with all the background information. Choco was tour leader for this and we had a two hour walk around the 60 or so points of interest, stopping for a café crème part way through the tour. 

These places have been around for a long time, so churches and buildings can have their roots 5-6 hundred years ago, and sometimes, as in this town’s case, a church with its origins from the 5th century.

                                        

We were following in the Steps of Cadet Roussel, a one-time mayor and benefactor. In the middle of the town was a vineyard Clos de la Chainette, the oldest known vineyard in France.

It was a lovely warm day, probably a bit hot for the walk, but reasonably quiet in town as it is another of the country's public holidays. May 1 we struck in Paris, this was May 8, the celebration for the end of WWII.

We were treated to a great thunder and lightning show in the early evening, some spectacular sheet lightning and some real reverberating thunder with some pretty heavy rain for a short time.

We needed to do a shopping top up, so took a walk to the Le Clerc supermarket about 300m away. Unfortunately so did most of the population, probably because of the previous day’s holiday. This had a better range than Lidl, but the configuration is quite strange and it’s a bit of a Warehouse experience initially as you walk past clothes and shoes and other non-food stuff.

We then departed north retracing our steps, on our way to the Canal de Bourgogne. Locking down is a bit easier, and it was travelling as quickly as were could to get the maximum length of the canal under our belts, so to speak. The intention was to travel to Tonnerre, and then wander our way back again.

At Migennes we left the Canal de Nivernais, and headed into the first lock. This was a bit of a surprise as we looked at the 5+ metre high structure, and we were back to locking up! The river guide, which is always at the steering station, generally gives all the information you need to keep afloat and out of trouble, lock heights, distances, river hazards, bridge crossings and no go areas. The Bourgogne locks are all manned so often there isn’t a small quay to put your own lock man (in our case Choco), ashore. They do have a ladder to climb inside the lock but it’s difficult to see just where that is until you are in the lock, and committed to one side. The lock keeper in this case passed down a long pole to pick up the front rope and our aft hand (Ann) was a bit short to get the stern rope up to Choco who had tackled the long ladder up. So a petit peu of drama to start. The second lock, just 1.5km away was a little lower at 3.1 m , but still a stretch, this was followed by 3.22 m, 3.83m, and later another 5.14m at Germigny. We put Choco ashore here, avec bike to go and find some pain for lunch. The arrangement was we would wait for him after the lock, however the lock keeper wanted us to go straight on the the next lock, so we did, hoping that Choco would follow when he returned from the “hunter-gatherer" part of his job as shore man. He did appear on the cycle path, brandish the baguettes, and cycled ahead to meet us at the next lock.

It was a busy day with plenty on locking up and a just a short tie up, canal side for lunch while we waited for the lock- keeper's lunch break to finish. Mission accomplished, we got to Tonnerre about 5 pm, travelling past plenty of crops, some livestock farming (mainly beef), some beautiful chateaux, hilltop churches small villages and plenty of old ruined buildings, including this old lavoir: washing building.

                                        

All of the locks have a house with them, some obviously occupied, but others not, as these days with motorbikes and cars each lockkeeper mans, or womans, several locks!       

                                         

The canal was very beautiful with lots of spring flowering trees and yellow and blue iris growing wild. And no wind so very tranquil. 

                                         

                                      

                                       

Plenty of fishermen along the way, some well-prepared for overnight stays. They apparently catch and release carp. We spotted all sorts of fish in the canal and some in the adjoining river which appealed more in terms of edibility.

Tonnerre has a 150m mooring quay and a small Captainerie, and no one else was moored up at all! That was a bit of a surprise. There was lots of public holiday (again) activity, men playing boules in the adjacent park and plenty of parents and children in the playground area.

We unloaded the bikes and headed into town for a recce. First spot on the tour was La Fosse-Dionne, a large spring in the centre of the town welling up with crystal clear water from the limestone. The cave has been explored for about 600 m and to a depth of more than 30m. As it's a very convoluted tunnel, narrow in places, it’s a bit of a challenge. No doubt someone, or some piece of technology will explore it further in time.

The area we wanted to explore here is Epineuil, a small grape growing area known for its red wines, but also with close links to nearby Chablis. I had thought a bike ride to Chablis itself might be on from here, but 16 km each way in the time available it would have been a challenge. We don’t move quite at Tour de France pace. Epineuil, on the other hand is about a km away, unfortunately up the hill some would say. However, if you want to experience what these limestone pebble dominated soils can produce, you do need to go uphill! Some of the vines were very old, and just past bud burst.

We needed to find a spot to do some tasting, and to enjoy the small town and its views. Some of these adventures are a bit unplanned, we head off and go in whatever direction looks interesting. At one point, approaching what we thought was the top of a hill we could see Vaulicheres, a chateau and village on the other side of the valley. We thought that might be good for a coffee or a tasting. After a km or so didn’t give a us a road downhill I checked with Maps.me, my “off-line” maps app on the phone to see that option wasn’t going to give results without more km peddling than we were prepared to do. So we took the delightful downhill alternative back into Epineuil, to see if we could locate a tasting.

We found ourselves at Leger Pere et Fils, an unlikely looking couple of sheds one of which had an open doorway and gathering of viticultural equipment outside. I rode up to the garage door and inside it looked a bit like the workers' smoko room. There was a man sitting at the long table, and I asked, “Can we do a tasting?”, and we were immediately welcomed in. Out came the glasses and two bottles of wine. On the table also was a baguette, cheese and a pork terrine. We were immediately offered the terrine, and the advice "you must have food with wine".

The glasses were very generous and we started with the Rose. Fabrice, our host had little English but was quite voluble. As the halting conversations flowed back and forth across the table, phones and photo galleries helped the communication. We were joined by two French couples, possibly Leger family friends. The tasting moved on to the 2017 Pinot Noir, and then a magnum of 2012 Pinot Noir appeared. That provided the answer to Choco’s question, “Why don’t they make wines in bottles big enough for two people?”

The conversation roamed over Australia, New Zealand, wines, the All Blacks, occupations, agriculture, viticulture, trade names and appellations. Fabrice was very passionate about lots of things, “how can they make Chablis wine in England?”, he loved my picture of our Christmas 2008 beef first loin roast which I showed him as part of our beef breed discussions. He was a bit dismissive of the Bourgogne Charolais, but all good things beef came from the Blond Aquitaine breed!

A little while later out came the Mirabelle Plum Brandy which we all tried as well. We bought some wine, and took our leave. The tasting experience was amazing, and it’s the sort of experience that we look for and often achieve on these trips. You need to be a bit out there and look hard for the experiences in these mostly in small villages.

Luckily it was again downhill to the boat for a picnic lunch (I’d biked into the village earlier to get le pain, a pate and a terrine for lunch.

After lunch we biked into town for a further look, up to the church on the hill above the town, and then we headed off to do another tasting at a winery we had biked past on the way back from this morning’s event. Dominique Gruhier was a very different experience, four lovely wines tasted and more learnt about the local industry.

We decided to put a few km under our belt again so that we could get to St-Florentin in time for the Saturday morning market. We travelled in company with another boat for a way, but lock-keepers time stopped us getting to our target village Percey. We were only a couple of km and a couple of locks short, but arranged to be at the lock for neuf heures in the morning. So another peaceful night in the nature and aperitifs on the front deck!

Our stay in nature showed the extent of the Copyu population. These are South American rodents bought to France with the objective of starting a fur trade. That failed and these substantial rodents now destroy the canal banks. Just another misguided translocation!!

We made St-Florentin by about 11 am, and moored up stern first, yes it is a bit tricky, and headed off on the bikes to the town market and a look around a very picturesque village, with another skyline church, in this case a little rundown. .

The forecast was deteriorating and we experienced a few high winds late in the afternoon, happily at a time when we were on the boat and setting up for the evening. The night's meal was our traditional last night frittata, not that this was the last night, but tomorrow night back in Joigny we have a degustation dinner booked. This is another of the canal boating traditions to be enjoyed.

The trip back down the Canal de Bourgogne was done with two other boats, and we had some cosy lock experiences as the lock keepers squeezed us all in.

Weather was cold and rainy and if we had to have one of these rainy days this was a good day to have it.

We arrived back in Joigny late afternoon, and got ourselves set up for our degustation dinner at La Cote St Jacques, alongside the Yonne river. The meal and matching wines was just spectacular, and the service was outstanding. The chef, whose family have owned this business since his grandmother set it up in 1946, came by to welcome us as we sat drinking our aperitif, and then late in the meal  came by again for quite a long chat. The pictures can tell the story for this one, although this is just a selection of the courses: amuse bouche, oyster terrine, langoustine and razor crab, cheese and the most amazing deconstructed kir royale (even the glass was edible of a light toffee-like construction!)

This is the major extravagance for our canal boating trips, but we think that one Michelin two star meal at 1240 Euros (about NZ$2000) for the four of us is a good way to create a lasting memory, and a great experience. The great service extended to the staff driving us home, just across the river to the Locaboat base in the absolutely pouring down rain, complete with an umbrella escort.

We had a train booking mid morning for our trip back to Paris and on to Tours, even though this was a strike day. The day didn't start well, still raining gently as we woke up to a very grey day. The disasters slowly unravelled, and Natalia at Locaboat provided us with absolutely fantastic support, ringing locally and then further and further afield to try and find a rental car for us as all trains were cancelled and getting to Tours today "is impossible!" Choco and Vikki had a car booked from Auxerre to start their travels to Epernay, Alsace and then on to Germany. We were going to Tours, in the opposite direction, but with no rental cars, no trains and no buses, we were in a bit of a jam.  Wayne and Vikki couldn't get to Auxerre either, but that was a relatively easy solution, it's a 55 Euro taxi fare rather than a 2 Euro train fare.

Wayne and Vikki then decided, well we haven't got any accommodation booked in the direction we are heading "How about we take you to Tours?" So we all piled into the Auxerre taxi and took the 20 minute ride to Avis near the Gare in Auxerre. It took about an hour and a quarter to sort the hire even though it was pre-booked from Australia. Avis really mucked this one up, but it's a long story and I won't go there.

Eventually Vikki got the keys to our Ford Fiesta (four people, four cases, four back packs and a bit of other paraphernalia). Yes we did fit, and we set off into the rain. This is where Maps.me which we discovered from Trish and Euan on our trip to Laos and Cambodia last October, came into its own. You download the maps when you have Wifi and have a world of detail available. Traffic on the A6, A19 and A10 was heavy and the camions were throwing up absolute walls of spray. Vikki, the nominated driver for the contract, did a sterling job, and I navigated from my little corner of the back seat.

It was a great relief to turn up at our hotel in Tours after it looked like we were going to have all sorts of difficulty getting there. Fortunately, Hotel L'Artiste had a room available, and our rescue crew stayed the night. Choco and Vikki are the champions of free wheeling travel, they often just book the first night and the last night of a trip and wing the rest. That approach saved us on this occasion.

Tours is a lovely city. We did a walk around the back streets and the shopping precinct as the rain had run out of steam. Lots of very grand buildings such as the town hall and the railway station. Shame SNCF service doesn't match its grandeur.

In one of our crammed locking experiences on the San Florentin to Joigny day, when we were travelling in our convoy of three, Ann had a chat to the forward hand on the boat jammed up against our stern at one lock. There was a family group of youngsters celebrating a birthday with a boating weekend. They were from Tours and gave us a list of restaurant recommendations of places serving real French food, non-tourist. We found one of those on our walk and decided that was the place for an evening meal.

We turned up at Le Chien Jaune and found the place was frequented mainly by locals. Monday is market day in Tours so the Plat Menu was fare all fresh from the morning's market, and it was plentiful and just lovely. Salmon, asparagus, broad beans, strawberries, chicken, a range of mushrooms all accompanied by a local Chenin Blanc, then a Pinot Noir. We will go back again for another meal when we finish our walk, before we head on to Sweden.

                                     

Back to the hotel, we had another couple of 500 rubbers to finish the 2018 tournament. The scoreboard showed  Boys 10, Girls 5 so we got the bragging rights this time. Choco had picked up a bottle of the other local red Cabernet Franc, so we tried that as our after-dinner digestif.

We waved the rescue squad off, with Maps.me downloaded by both of them on their 304 km trip to Epernay to pick up on their next leg, albeit a day late, but with an interesting diversion tagged on.

The day is clear blue skies so we are looking good for our walk among the Chateaux of the Loire.