Franche-Comte and Beaune

Two days dedicated to wine and fine dining. Yesterday we drove 150km to a small village called Pupillan in the hills of Franche-Comte (Free County) - this area borders on Switzerland and was an autonomous region in the Middle Ages settled by Gauls so the people still regard themselves as different to other French people! We drove via Dole the birthplace of Louis Pasteur and then Arbois where he worked and discovered his first vaccine which was for rabies. All beautiful little villages and lots of forests and agricultural farming. Anyway I had read of a restaurant in Pupillan (Michelin listed) Auberge D’Grapeliot that served local produce so we had a beautiful three course lunch including the local vin jaune (yellow wine) which is a wine that is fermented for six years in oak barrels and becomes a strong astringent aperitif - not bad but not something I’d bring home.
Today we headed to Beaune - the wine capital of Burgundy. After the obligatory morning coffee and croissant we headed to the Caves (cellars) of Patriache et Fils - wine merchants on the same site since 1776. The building was an old convent which had cellars dating back to the 14th century - since then they have extended the cellars under the city of Beaune to now encompass 2 hectares of cellars and 5 kms of tunnels - with three million bottles of wine! Also they had beautiful modern sculptures scattered amongst the wine - great tour finished with a guided tasting of six wines - we learnt so much about the regions and specific grapes used - at the end we were lucky to have a tasting of a grand cru red (only 2% of production gets grand cru status in France). So we headed off with 8 bottles to our next Michelin hat lunch - just kept to two courses today - a veal tartare with smoked eel and raspberry tart with sage. We then waddled around the old streets for a while and then headed off home. So much more to see in Beaune that we will return another day.Read more