“Écouter moi!” barked the vineyard supervisor as a dozy grape carrier failed to respond quickly enough to instructions about precisely which group of pickers he should be collecting grapes from. The shout had the dual effect of emboldening the hapless worker and shattering the rose-tinted spectacles through which I had been viewing proceedings up until then. Picking grapes is hard, grinding work, only imbued by dewy-eyed onlookers with some sort of bucolic romance, not by the pickers themselves. It was late afternoon on a baking day in Burgundy, with the mercury touching 30ºC and I could partly empathise with the pickers, as I had rashly decided to explore the village and vineyards of Chassagne-Montrachet by bicycle. Read More...

Tags: Burgundy, Chassagne, Ramonet

What is the most overlooked red wine from Burgundy’s Côte d’Or? That’s a no-brainer in my book; it simply has to be red Chassagne-Montrachet. Mention the name to almost anybody outside the immediate region and they will start licking their chops in anticipation of glorious white wines, with nary a thought of reds. It is the ‘Montrachet’ in the name that does it. Read More...

Tags: Burgundy, Chassagne, Ramonet