We’re in Dijon, in the heart of Burgundy, France. Yesterday was a hang-around-town in Dijon day. Today we’re going to get out of town and take take a wine tour. We’re not quite sure what we’re getting ourselves into, but we made a reservation yesterday for a Burgundy wine tour this morning, so we’re going to go. Should be interesting!
A Shaky Start
We were supposed to meet our guide, Elohim, (who goes by “Elo”), at Place d’Arcy at 9:00 AM. We walked to Place d’Arcy and arrived shortly before 9:00. Hmmmm… Place d’Arcy is large, with busy streets running all around it. Our guide could be anywhere around here. We didn’t see anyplace that looked like a potential rendevous point, nor did we see anyone else waiting around.
At 9:05 we decided to call Elo to see what’s up. He answered, and said he’d been looking for us, and “where were we?” I told him we were at Place d’Arcy, where we were supposed to be. Where was he?
He said he was close by. He asked us to go from Place d’Arcy to another spot nearby where we’d see some tour buses. I thought I knew where he was talking about. He said he’d meet us there in five minutes.
We found the tour busses, but after waiting a few more minutes, there was still no sign of our guy. This time he called us. Where were we? “We’re by the tour busses, where are you?”
When we told him where we were, he said he thought he could see us, but he couldn’t drive there from where he was. He asked us to look around and we’d see him waving at us. Sure enough, about a block away, there was a young-looking guy standing next to a van sporting the tour company’s logo. He was waving at us, motioning for us to come down to where he was. I was starting to have second thoughts about this thing, but at least we’d finally got hooked up.
A Personalized Wine Tour for Two
Elo was an energetic guy with a big smile. It was impossible to not like him. His english was excellent, but he was all French, and he had the accent to prove it. He told us he’d been trying to find the other people who are supposed to be on the tour this morning, but he wasn’t able to find them. Now it was getting late, so we’d better leave without them. The only people on the tour would be Elo, my beautiful and demure Better Half, and Moi!
He said that everyone else had signed up for the tour through the Tourist Office. He didn’t know what they tell people who sign up for the tour, but half the time he can’t find them. Then he said in his wonderful French accent, “Zay veel be mad because zay ave already paid! Oh well!”
We hopped in the van and off we went, heading out of town to the vineyards. As soon as we were moving, Elo started telling us a bit about himself. He was born in a small town not far from Dijon. He loves everything about wine. Ever since he was ten or so, he knew he wanted to be in the wine business. He has worked at just about every job one can have for many of the wine producers in the area. He loves to make wine, he loves to drink it, and he loves to talk about it.
We were out of town in no time. We exited the highway and turned onto a smaller road. Pretty soon we turned off again, this time onto what looked like a tractor trail, then headed in amongst the vines. Elo parked the van.
A Closer Look at the Vines
We got out of the van and walked in the dirt to have a closer look at the vines. We were standing at the edge of a large vineyard. The terrain, which was level where we were standing, sloped up into gentle hills nearby. It was completely quiet and beautiful.
On the way here, Elo had asked what interested us most, so he could tailor the tour accordingly. I told him I’d been reading about Burgundy wines, but it was confusing because of the hundreds of producers, designations, and localities. I didn’t see how anyone could know what they’re doing unless they lived here all their lives. If he could simplify it for me so I’d know what’s important and what’s not, that’d be great.
Elo said, “Eets not complicated at all. Eets seemple, and by ze end of ze tour you veel understand ze whole zing!”
In order to gauge what we knew, (so he’d know what to tell us and what to leave out), Elo asked us some questions about wine growing in Burgundy. I don’t remember the questions, but I remember that we answered them all correctly. That seemed to liven Elo up even more, (if that was possible), because now he knew for certain that he was talking to people who were really interested in what he had to say.
Lesson #1
We looked at the vines immediately in front of us. Elo asked if we noticed anything interesting. We offered up a few observations. Then he proceeded to tell us all kinds of things for the next twenty minutes. Everything he pointed out was easy to see, once we knew what we were looking at.
For example, two rows of vines in front of us looked different than two adjacent rows. That’s because each of these two pairs of rows has a different owner. In this little section of vineyard, where there are maybe thirty rows, there might be ten or more owners.
Each owner farms his own rows as he sees fit. (There’s no rhyme or reason as to who owns which rows. They’ve bought, sold, inherited, and traded parcels of all sizes here for hundreds of years, so now it’s a big mish-mash of ownership).
Anyway, in this case, one owner pruned back some of the leaves so his grapes would have more exposure to the sun. “Ah, but ze leaves are what catch the sun, perform photosynthesis, and sustain ze growing process for ze whole vine. Everyzing starts veese ze leaves, eh?”
Elo said that in his opinion, 90% of winemaking is in the farming, 5% is in the picking, and 5% is everything that’s done after the grapes have been picked, although most of what’s written about wine is all about that last 5%.
According to Elo, “No matter what the winemaker does after the grapes have been picked, he can’t make the wine better than the fruit. He can only mess it up.” We’d never heard about making wine the way Elo described it, but everything he’d been saying made sense. And I think it was already starting to change the way we thought about wine.
To be continued…
