Escapade On The Auxerre Wino Bus

So the third day we were there, the Auxerre TI was sponsoring a "fleurs de vigne" wine tour, an "escapade au coeur des de 'Yonne," offering visits to as many as 30 wineries in 6 of the nearby wine villages. This is not the Cote d'Or, but it is Burgundy, including Chablis. 5E per personne, plus you get to keep the glass and little bag. We, even Vicki, couldn't resist. We didn't get started until after lunch and had to spend a little time in every village waiting on the five or so circulating "oeno buses." I probably got to 4 of the villages and perhaps 10 wineries, and nearly every one had someone who spoke enough English to make it a great learning experience, about the wines and especially about trends in the industry.

Cute little bag, bottle, and itineraire

As I observed in a previous post, Burgundy has many small, owner-managed
vineyards...here we are going to see some of these family-owned and operated
vineyards...the household dog comes to sniff

So essentially you walk into someone's house, and maybe there's a a bar and tables
or maybe not

Two comments: 1) it's all a family thing and 2) I really want a bottle tree like
this

QED

Alas, I am away from my notes and cannot remember all the villages; the main
one was Irancy

Great pride among all these people in their work

You walk into someone's house to the tasting room--hard to ignore the kitchen,
a real French kitchen--beyond the garage maybe is the warehouse, and beneath
it all are the caves

Cave

Warehouse, packaging, shipping

Pride

Vicki generally took a sip, poured the rest into my glass, and then explored the
village churches, some of which were quite large...these villages have been
prosperous for some time

Another chateau (the balloons designate a participating winery)

One of the villages

Oeno tractor approaching..

Typical...grains in the flat, low land; vineyards and orchards higher up; managed
forest on top

Rouge

I bought a bottle of Chablis from this place

Someone's treasure

One of the quite large churches

Oeno-monster

One of the several wino buses

I just barely made the final Wino Bus, and missed this one last cave, which was
dug into the mountainside; next time