Today we are off on a culinary mission. Jenelle has been reading up on the local specialities and our first stop is the Dijon Friday market. The tour director has a list of specific items we are searching for.
We hunt amongst the local cheese merchants who are surprising helpful and speak a little English, which is a bonus. The three cheeses we are searching for (and find) are;
1. Epoissses au Marc de Bourgogne (the unwraped orange rind piece in photo below)
2. Delice de Pommard
and 3. l'Amour de Nuits St Georges
While at the markets we bump into a Truffle man who has fresh-ish truffles. This time we get a good whiff of what real truffles smell like. Finally we know what all the fuss is about. It is very subtle aroma, but worth pursuing. The truffles we have bought and tried so far have been way short of the real thing.
The next item on the tour director's list is mustard. Dijon is obviously the home of mustard and our mission is to try the real thing, which comes in many flavours apparently. We do our sampling and come away with a new appreciation of mustard. We buy a pack of six small bottles of different flavours. Who knew there could be dozens of flavours of mustard?
The next mission was to find a spiced bread that the locals rave about. For something supposedly that popular we were having trouble finding it. It didn't help that we were actually looking for “bread”. Pain d'Epice as it is called, is not bread in the true sence, but bread as in Banana Bread (Cake). Once we tricked to that, “Voila” we can find it everywhere..doh! For the record it tastes great. The one we bought was very moist with honey and flavoured with ginger, nutmeg, etc....yumbo!
We are on a roll. The secret is to have what you are looking for written down. Our written communication is much more successful than spoken.
Our next mission is to buy some of the local wines and a blackberry liqueur to make a cocktail caller Kir. To do this we need to head into the heart of Burgundy wine growing region along the “Route des Grand Crus”
The route runs south out of Dijon to Beaune, a distance of about 50km right through the heart of paradise. Either side of the road to the horizon is wall to wall vineyards.
And the grapes are ready to harvest...
Occasionally they squeeze in a village...
occasionally a cemetery...
and occasionally a chateau or three....
All along the route are caves (vineyard cellar doors). If you went door to door down the road towards Beaune, sampling all the wines and you would not make it before your liver gave out. There are hundreds of caves selling their Burgundy wine. No co-op bulk producers here like Vouvray nears Tours. Every winemaker in Burgundy has his own label.
About half way between Dijon and Beaune is the small but very quaint village of Nuits St Georges.
its streets are decorated with grape motifs..
and the buildings are decorated with Trompe l'Oeil...
It seems like every second building is a cave offering free wine tasting.
But guess what all those individual wines come from just two varieties; Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
We always thought Burgundy wines were heavy red wines like our Shiraz; wrong. Burgundy red wines are just our typical Pinot Noir. And the white Burgundy wines are just our typical Chardonnay. Surprise, surprise! And you won't find any of this on the bottle. French wine labels generally don't include the variety. Basically to work out the variety of grapes used to make the wine you have to know the location of the vineyard.
Mission accomplished we finally cracked the French wine label code..
Our final task was to buy the ingredients of the a cocktail that the French love; Kir. We have been seeing it in cafes and bars the length and breath of the country and now we want to buy the ingredients; Bourgogne Aligote (a white wine) and Blackberry Liqueur.
Again we are successful. One of the guys in the caves explains the whole mystery of Kir to us. We have the key to unlock another French riddle that has been bugging us. Now we have worked out Kir can be made with any white wine including champagne and any fruity liqueur. Why do the French have to make the simple seem so complicated.
Roll out the barrel...
As Len Evans the great, late wine judge said “wine is a drink, you don't have to analyse it, just drink it”. Here's to you Len!
