actually will start with some wine talk, straight no chaser on this thursday, october 25, 2007. i had considered delivering a diatribe against a disgusting place of business called the Marches aux Vin or such in Beaune, France. Let me be succinct and just say, they delivered chardonnay wine and gevrey chambertin pinot noir wine -- gevrey chambertin being the favorite wine of such notable oenophiles as Napoleon and John F. Kennedy -- that was much worse than a disappointment. The gevrey chambertin was suspect, and the chardonnay delivered to family and friends was awful. And would you believe they treated me, a wine writer, writing much at the time for such magazines as Wine Ethusiast and Wine News, terribly. They would not refund my money -- they didn't even apologize.
So if ever in Beaune, in the heart of France's Burgundy region, where chardonnay and pinot noir varietals were first grown many centuries ago, avoid the Marches aux Vin as if you were avoiding the proverbial plague.
In the case of this rip-off outfit, Beaune is truly where the Beauneheads live.
Below find a pasting from an email i just sent to my brother. France is awfully expensive now in October, 2007. Here are some memories from earlier times. But, as a travel writer, who has written about such places as Munich, Germany, for the Orange Country Register Travel Section, and Champagne the place, and champagne the wine, and Cognac the place and cognac the spirit for the two aforementioned wine magazines, and Crete, the place, for the Philadelphia Inquirer Travel Section, Labor Day Weekend 1991 (it should be in their archives), let me tell you rule number one for traveling in Europe: always seek out the small towns and villages.......I bet you can still have a steak frittes meal in Beaune in Burgundy for much, much less than what the steak would cost you in New York City or Los Angeles. I enjoyed my filet in a little neighborhood restaurant, far from the tourist restaurants.....I was the only non-local in the place....and the low priced pinot noir I had was excellent. The steak was fantastic......The tenderness, and the taste, not to mention its enormous size.
Quickly, the area is known for such great chardonnays as Puligny Montrachet, and Le Montrachet, which cost $300 a bottle in the states back in the 90s. As many tourists have driven up the prices for decades, I sampled some of those high-priced chardonnays and was generally disappointed. Days later I was in Mainz, Germany, and I had several whites that blew me away. There is a cliche that German whites do not travel well. It may be cliche, but it is correct. OK, onto a champagne remembrance pasted from an email:
THOSE THREE PHILIPPONNAT CHAMPAGNES WE HAD AT THE ONE TASTING WERE GREAT, WEREN'T THEY ? I WOULD RECOMMEND PHILIPPONNAT CHAMPAGNES AND POMMERY CHAMPAGNES TO ONE AND ALL.........POMMERY HAS ONE OF THE BEST NON-PRESTIGE CUVEE CHAMPAGNES YOU CAN GET, POMMERY BRUT ROYALE.........PRESTIGE CUVEES ARE THE TOP OF THE LINE CHAMPAGNES, SUCH AS DOM PERIGNON FROM MOET & CHANDON AND ROEDERER CRYSTAL......THE NON-PRESTIGE CUVEES ARE MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE AND ARE NOT MADE FROM A SINGLE VINTAGE, SO THE TASTE IS OFTEN MORE UNIFORM FROM YEAR TO YEAR -- THE TASTE EXPRESSES THE HOUSE'S PARTICULAR STYLE MORE THAN IS POSSIBLE WITH SINGLE-YEAR WINES......
POMMERY WAS THE CHAMPAGNE HOUSE THAT OWNED THE BUILDING WHERE THE BOYER LES CRAYERES RESTAURANT, WHERE I DINED TWICE, WAS LOCATED....A COUPLE YEARS BACK, CONDE NAST TRAVELER RATED THE RESTAURANT THE BEST GOURMET RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD. MY FIRST MEAL THERE LASTED THREE HOURS,,,AND THE BIGGEST SURPRISE WAS HOW HARD THEY WORKED TO MAKE YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE......BEFORE THE MEAL I ASKED ONE OF THE CHAMPAGNE REGION PR FOLKS IF I SHOULD WEAR A TIE...."CERTAINLY," I WAS TOLD. LATER I ASKED A REPRESENTATIVE FROM POMMERY IF THAT WAS NECESSARY. "IF YOU CHOOSE TO WEAR ONE," SHE REPLIED. I WOULD SAY ABOUT 40 PERCENT OF THE MEN DINING THAT NIGHT WERE NOT WEARING TIES.....I WAS WEARING A NICE, GREY SUIT, HOWEVER. YOU DO NOT DINE IN A PLACE LIKE THAT WEARING JEANS, OR SHORTS, SAY.......
THEN FOR A MEAL LATER AT THE BOYER LES CRAYERES...I HAD A BOTTLE OF MUMM'S BLANC DE BLANC CREMANT OR SUCH..THEY DONT EXPORT THAT TO THE STATES, I DON'T THINK......UNREAL TASTE...GREAT WINE....AFTER THAT LUNCH, I TOOK A HAND-HELD, NATURAL LIGHT PHOTO OF THEN-BOYER-CHEF GERARD BOYER AT WORK IN HIS KITCHEN THAT WAS PUBLISHED IN THE WINE NEWS MAGAZINE; LATER THAT DAY I TOURED THE CELLARS AT PHILIPPONNAT.
MADAME LOUISE POMMERY, A WIDOW WHO TOOK OVER POMMERY IN THE LATE 1800S LEFT A VERY IMPORTANT MARK ON CHAMPAGNE......SHE WAS THE FIRST TO PRODUCE A BRUT, NON-SWEET CHAMPAGNE.....UNTIL HER CREATION, ALL CHAMPAGNES WERE SWEET.......
(Note: at the lunch I mentioned earlier that I enjoyed at the Boyer Les Crayeres, I had a glass of Pommery's Louise Pommery prestige cuvee to toast the woman who gave us "non-sweet" champagne [when you visit the Champagne Region, you are told over and over, the only real champagne comes from France's Champagne Region; the U.S. is about the only country that still uses the word "champagne" on bottles of sparkling wines.] One of the three bottles of Philipponnat I sampled I mentioned earlier here was the excellent prestige cuvee Clos de Goisses; go to the Web site www.philipponnat.com to see the great photo of the Clos de Goisses vineyards reflected in nearby water -- with the reflection, it looks very much like a wine bottle.)
Pasted below is some writing about Cognac the place and cognac the spirit...BTW, years ago I was working on a photo/writing book COGNAC AND CHAMPAGNE: LANDSCAPE, WINE AND SPIRIT. I figured I shot about 1,000 magazine quality Fujichrome 35 mm transparencies during trips to Champagne and Cognac, and about 250 book quality transparencies. Well, the book never got off the ground -- the slides are in storage.
Photos from Burgundy that are viewable on the Internet are at my old aol site.....i think one can still get there.....Not long ago, i found a cache of the site by searching Google for Paul Heidelberg. Searching for Paul Heidelberg aol ought to get you there.....
If you go tot he site, you will find a photo of a beautiful vine planted by the mother of a man Paul -- Paul, the Man from Mersault -- a really friendly gentleman. Meeting him was the opposite of meeting up with the Marche aux Vin people.
ok, here is the Cognac, and cognac, remembrance................
this was written today, Oct. 25, 2007...........
THIS WEATHER IS SPECTACULAR..THIS IS LIKE ONE JUNE DAY I HAD IN COGNAC WHEN I DROVE WITH A REPRESENTATIVE FROM COURVOISIER IN A CAR BACK TO TOWN FROM THEIR DISTILLERY WHERE WE HAD JUST FINISHED THIS GREAT OUTDOOR LUNCH.....HE SAID DO YOU MIND IF I OPEN THE SUN ROOF....NOT AT ALL I REPLIED..
WE HAD JUST ENJOYED APERTIFS OF COURVOISIER VSOP AND GINGER ALE, RED AND WHITE BORDEAUXS FROM 6 LITER BOTTLES, SPECTACULAR FOOD, FOLLOWED BY BLACK COFFEE NEAT AND COURVOISER XO OR SUCH...MIGHT HAVE BEEN NAPOLEON GRADE....THE FOOD WAS GREAT, AND SO WAS THE WINE AND COGNAC....I OFTEN THINK WITH ALL THE TASTING OF COGNACS MORNING NOON AND NIGHT, IN THE CHARENTE, I RARELY HAD A HANGOVER THE NEXT DAY...MUST HAVE BEEN THE GREAT FOOD....
BUT THE WEATHER THAT DAY WAS ABOUT 65 F, NOT A CLOUD IN THE SKY......JUST GREAT.........
THAT WAS A REAL PLEASURE: DRIVING ALONG COUNTRY ROADS THROUGH VINEYARDS WHERE THE BEST SPIRIT IN THE WORLD IS MADE.....THERE ARE SOME NICE SINGLE MALT SCOTCHES, BUT SCOTCH IS MADE FROM MALT, AS BEER IS.........COGNAC IS MADE FROM GRAPES.......IN VINEYARDS LOCATED ABOUT 90 MILES NORTH OF BORDEAUX, WHERE MANY OF THE BEST WINES IN THE WORLD HAVE BEEN MADE FOR CENTURIES.
