Day 10: One for the road

Nice little hotel last night but it could have been better if I had known the internet modem was in a cupboard down the hall and I could have reset it myself every hour that it seemed to lock up.

Finally got connected and caught up with a ton of emails before skipping breakfast and driving north to a quaint restaurant for lunch -- along with about 20 families wheeling their grandmothers out for the day!

We had pre-selected two very interesting wines, and decided to have two courses to go with them. I had a lovely fish and scallop dish with truffled potato and rice for entree, along with a wine I'd never had before -- a 2004 Faiveley Corton Charlemagne. Quite rich -- you'd be tempted to call it an oxidative style, although it's one of those ones that seems to get leaner and tighter with air. A bit of the 04 celery/pistacchio character that I don't mind. An interesting wine at the very least, if not particularly long, focused and intense. We saved almost half a bottle for later.

Main course was young duck with foie gras, and the accompaniment was a 2004 DRC Vosne Romanee 1er cru Duvalt Blochet, which I believe comes from the young vines of DRC's various grand crus. Not at all green, with interesting spicy notes, quite a supple, easy-drinking style, rather than a wow wine.

Full and ready for a nap, but it's not to be. We buy an 06 Duvalt and an 06 Coche Dury Volnay 1er cru for later inspection and hit the road to Beaune. Well, a little detour to Domaine David Clark to pick up some wine I had stashed there and to share some wine and tales with David and his father (who was busy at the time building Vine Buggy Mark VI).

We polished off the two lunch wines, which both looked better rather than worse for the three-hour drive, then enjoyed an 08 Bourgogne from David -- such a juicy, clean, fresh, pure, fine-tannined drink, and I will be getting only 10 cases for all of Australia! -- plus two German reds from Schafer-Frohlich. These were both interesting and quite impressive, but I don't want to give away what they were just yet. Oh ok, an 06 Nahe Spatburgunder (pinot noir) and an 05 cabernet sauvignon from the Pfalz. Really well done! I might import a bit of these as an oddity.

We tore ourselves away for dinner at Gav and Gen's pad in Beaune, and forced down a bottle of Vouette et Sorbee Fidele champagne to celebrate my first night back in Burgundy. It's a big, rich, oaky pinot-dominant champagne with low fizz that really needs food. A lot more delicate than the 04 disgorgement, but a style that will divide the punters, I reckon. Love it or leave it.