A Taste of Beaune

I think our first visit to Beaune was in 1979. Maybe 1989. Beaune is the capital of my long-time favored wines, Burgundy, so we have gotten to Beaune pretty much every time we have been in France. A few past posts are http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/07/beaune.html, http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/09/beaune-2013.html, and http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/07/hotel-dieu.html. Apart from the wines, the old town is also a beautiful and happenin' place. But this visit was about doing the Patriarche tasting just one more time. Patriarch is or was the largest of the negotiants, blenders and marketers of the wines, which mostly are from smaller plots, not huge corporate estates. I think I have been doing Patriarche since 1979 too, so I'll keep this post short (for me) and to the point. There were ten bottles to try, thus...

The little silver cup is what they give you to taste from...quantity control

This time of year, even in the mid-afternoon, I was one of only about 6 visitors
there; accordingly, there is only one sommelier to watch over the ten bottles (each
in a different room); lack of quantity control, but I still wanted to drive on to
Bourges and so didn't over-indulge; I even spat and poured some out (the cheap
stuff) (under 30E), a sign of increasing maturity

At the end the sommelier was there to offer me a bonus taste...a choice between
the Puligny-Montrachet or the Pernand Verglesses...I went with the latter since
it was the first bottle of good French wine I ever purchased...way back in 1979

On exiting, I missed a turn and wound up in the working part of the caves,
reflecting that this might be a really neat place to get locked-up in over-night,
especially if you carried a corkscrew (which I always do, of course)

I leave you with this parting thought: "Wine has the power to fill the soul with
all truth, all knowledge and philosophy" (maybe I should have drunk more in
graduate school)

And this image: the Beaune Tourist Train of Great Velocity