Breakfast in Burgundy, page 4
My heart hit my boots as I turned the corner into Rue Chauchien and saw it was closed. A notice in the window announced a two-week congé, leave or holiday, that I realized, now with heart soaring, ended the following day. For the moment the car was resorted to, rather than the flat-tired bicycle, and a quick dash was made to Chagny, with no time to enjoy the view on the return. Breakfast, normally a languid affair with a pot of good coffee, was utilitarian and taken amongst tins of paint, brushes, ladders, and a shocking accumulation of rubbish.
Later that day the final staple was pulled and I celebrated by flinging a coat of paint onto the walls. Three days followed in a haze of tiredness as I slogged through the decoration; I was moving in treacle and eight hours of coma-like sleep at day’s end was little help. On the fourth, as my will ebbed, a corner was turned and the room, like the ugly duckling, emerged vibrant white from dull brown.
A shower was followed by a vineyard walk in the sunshine that finished in the Place du Jet d’Eau. It was still a horrible mess. A gaggle of workers was always to be seen, but some of Burgundy’s famous snails might have gotten the job done quicker. Returning home through the cour communale I met the wife of our parking nemesis, kicking a ball with her grandson. It came my way by accident, so I tried to play the friendly neighbor, but when my inept swipe sent the ball skittering off in the wrong direction, her scowl could have cut stone. Unbeknownst to me, battle lines were being drawn for a long war of attrition. Discovering that her husband was the town nuisance was little consolation for the infantile skirmishes that followed, though I still smile at the embarrassment of two local winemakers when I related his ‘welcome to Santenay’ antics, hammering on our door and insisting we move our car, without even a bonjour to soften the blow.
There was no time to worry about my footballing prowess, for Fionnuala was due to land in Lyon that afternoon along with our great friends Michael and Kate, keen to celebrate their first Saint Patrick’s Day à la Française. Their feet had hardly touched the ground before I, proud as punch, insisted on showing them the house, not realizing that where I saw pristine paintwork, they saw a mountainous task of cleaning and tidying.
“We were certain you would not get it done in time for the party,” they confided to me afterwards.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” was all I could reply.
Buoyed by childish anticipation of the celebrations, Fionnuala and I sauntered through the cleaning and tidying in less than a day. Finally, four months after we took possession of the house, it was time to celebrate properly so, suitably scrubbed, the four of us headed for Restaurant Lameloise in Chagny.
Lameloise is a temple of French gastronomy, one of little more than a dozen outside Paris to hold three Michelin stars. With an army of suited staff it is formal, maybe even forbidding. Coats are taken, seats assigned in the lounge, menus distributed, delicate nibbles laid before you, drinks orders taken. Elaborate menus and a wine list the size of a family bible occupy your attention, the latter always first in my case. This is Fionnuala’s wine widow moment, as I disappear into a private reverie, perusing page after page, calling up memories of bottles enjoyed years before while gradually settling on a choice.
The standout wine of the evening was a Domaine Leflaive, Chevalier-Montrachet 2000. Unsullied by the scourge of modern white burgundy—premature oxidation—this wine was a delight and beautifully straddled the fish course and a wonderful dish of ris de veau, ordered only by myself. Ris de veau are calves’ sweetbreads and consist of the pancreas and thymus glands. They are not, as is popularly imagined, a more treasured part of the male anatomy. Those are euphemistically referred to as rognons blancs, or white kidneys, and very tasty they are too. Ris de veau is a dish where texture counts as much as taste. The meat should be springy but yielding, never pasty, and the delicate flavor is usually enhanced by an elaborate sauce. They can also be cooked very simply, blanched and dried, tossed in flour and fried in butter. This was the way my grandmother used to prepare them.
“I must tell you about the first time I ate sweetbreads,” I began.
“Is it a long story?” the trio chimed.
“My grandmother and my bachelor uncle lived in a big barracks of a house, set on a couple of acres, with heaps of outbuildings and big sheds in the grounds. It was paradise for a young fellow. There was a forest and an orchard where we picked apples in September. There were pear trees too, and plums and damsons and gooseberry bushes, and a greenhouse with the most gorgeous tomatoes and cucumbers, a conservatory with a huge grapevine—”
“And the sweetbreads?” inquired Fionnuala.
“Okay, okay. My uncle ran his engineering business from there, and that day my father was working with him and I tagged along. The sweetbreads came from our butcher cousins in the country and arrived late morning. Clearly this was a real treat, though I was perplexed by the name ‘sweetbreads.’ A sort of cake? Made from bread? From the butcher’s?
“We trooped indoors. A cast-iron pan was heated on top of the large, four-oven Aga cooker. I remember my uncle, normally a reserved man, almost hopping from foot to foot as the nuggets of meat sizzled in the browning butter. They were the nicest thing I had ever tasted and these are just as good.”
The Chevalier-Montrachet was not the only wine drunk that evening, and Saint Patrick’s Day started slowly as a result, but dallying in the bed was not an option. A couple of dozen guests were expected mid-afternoon and there was much to do. Fionnuala had travelled from Ireland with a large suitcase containing loaf after loaf of brown bread and a couple of pounds of butter. At a glance, a customs officer might have mistaken the plastic-wrapped loaves for a shipment of drugs, and to us they were just as valuable.
The morning was spent in preparation: slicing, carving, buttering, polishing, tasting, hoovering, washing, cleaning, and fretting. Tacky green decorations were hung about the house, with pride of place reserved for the crossed tricolours of Ireland and France. The first guests arrived, followed by some more. We were off, and in the end everything went splendidly. An inspired notion was the purchase of a football and while this was whacked around outside by the children, their parents got down to the serious business of eating and drinking.
There were French people, there were Irish people, there were French people who live in Ireland, and there were Irish people who live in France. There were two English couples and a man from Germany. And, to round out our multi-national gathering, there was our postman, William O’Farrell, who is French but whose name and impeccable speaking English come courtesy of an Irish-American parent.
The atmosphere was wonderful and I was filled with surging satisfaction, part relief at getting the decoration finished, part delight at seeing everybody enjoying themselves, and part champagne. Along with the smoked salmon I also shipped some smoked eel from Ireland and, in a bizarre coals-to-Newcastle exercise, two cases of champagne. It was J-P Robert, a favored though little-known producer, and had been bought two years previously. That bit of extra age works wonders for champagne, softening the acidity and letting the flavor fill towards richness.
The salmon was a winner, though word spread quickly about the smoked eel—anguille fumée—and a polite scramble ensued. Our local restaurateur, Fabrice Germain, took his time, sampling forensically, first pronouncing approval on the bread, then the salmon, the eel, and finally the butter. “Avec sel?” he inquired.
“Avec beaucoup de sel,” I replied.
Compared to unsalted butter, the salty Irish version has a rich ‘n’ hearty flavor, and this can present problems for Irish tourists when they venture abroad. In France much of the butter is unsalted—beurre non salé or sans sel—and at first exposure the taste seems limp and insipid, lacking in substance. Nevertheless, after a two-week exposure, many holidaymakers have returned home to discover, horror of horrors, they no longer find the robust salty version quite so attractive. A holiday fling with unsalted may turn into a life-long affair.
Countless French recipes incorporate butter somewhere along the line, and by using unsalted it is easier to control the seasoning of the dish. Yet you will not see them slathering it onto their baguette or plonking a generous knob onto a steaming spud as we do. It is used as an ingredient rather than a condiment. Notwithstanding, our brown bread received a scrape of butter before being heaped with salmon—there is nothing worse than a scrap of salmon sitting lonely on a slab of bread—and the only problem was keeping up with the strident demand. Keeping the glasses brimming was another challenge.
Eventually I had a moment to stand back and take stock. For a wine nut like myself, it was wonderful to see more than one vigneron taking his glass of champagne and giving it a quick but thorough assessment. A sniff. A sip. An inscrutable face. Had I chosen well? Judgement came by way of a mutter, and on Saint Patrick’s Day 2007 it was all I needed to hear: “C’est bon.”
3
THE CENTER OF THE KNOWN WORLD
I welcome newcomers to Burgundy in a sonorous voice: “You are at the center of the known world.”
“Does the center have a center?” asked Fionnuala one day, having heard my faux geography lesson once too often.
“Yes,” I replied, “it’s an unremarkable cross very close to here. I’ll show you.”
We were driving along Rue des Communes in the village of Vosne-Romanée, having visited the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. I wheeled the car around and sped the couple of hundred yards to the vineyard from which it takes its name: Romanée-Conti, the most celebrated piece of agricultural land on this planet. The vineyard is marked by a slim cross, gaunt and a little careworn, with a barely decipherable ‘INRI’ at its top. There’s a notice in French and English on the vineyard wall that reads: “Many people come to visit this site and we understand. We ask you nevertheless to remain on the road and request that under no condition you enter the vineyard. Thank you for your comprehension.” It’s a recent addition, designed to stem the flow of souvenirs taken over the years: stones, lumps of soil, and perhaps the odd vine cutting.
For wine lovers, there is no more sacred spot, and they come as pilgrims from the four corners to pay homage to a vineyard and its wine, which, from a good vintage, sells for thousands of dollars per bottle, prompting a busy trade in empty bottles amongst counterfeiters. Camera phones capture the moment for subsequent texting, tweeting, and Facebooking. All this to celebrate a wine that many of them will never drink.
It was ever thus. When Louis-François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, owned the vineyard in the 18th century, he kept the wine for himself and favored friends; it was not for sale. This was a time when land ownership rested almost exclusively with the aristocracy and the church, the latter of which, in the shape of the Benedictine and Cistercian monks, was responsible for the original demarcation of the vineyards, much of which remains in place today.
The shape of modern Burgundy can be traced back to 910 AD and the founding of the Benedictine Abbey at Cluny in the Mâconnais, south of the Côte d’Or. It quickly grew to be immensely powerful and wealthy, fostered by gifts of land from the aristocracy to “balance the books,” allowing them to go about their rapacious lifestyle with a clear conscience, courtesy of the monks’ intercession with the man above. Cluny was the largest Christian building in the world, and the remains are worth a special visit. Just don’t arrive at lunchtime as I did.
I approached the ticket counter a little before midday, as the lady in charge was closing for a 90-minute break. I pulled a perplexed face, amazed that a famous tourist attraction was closing for lunch:
“Vous fermez, madame?”
“Oui.” Her tone was snappy. It was time for bended knee grovelling.
“Parlez-vous anglais?”
“Un peu.” Still brisk.
I take pride in the number of upgrades to business or first class I have cajoled for long-haul flights, usually volunteering: “If the flight is full and you are short of seats in economy, I am happy to move forward.” Adopting my upgrade demeanor—supplicating pose and tortured expression—I waded in:
“Madame, I fly home from Lyon at 4:00. All my life I have wanted to visit Cluny. I may never be here again. On the telephone this morning I told my godson in Australia that I would visit and take some photos for him. He’s doing a school project about the Benedictines . . .”
I stalled, in search of further fibs. Her raised hand and knowing smile rescued me and then, with finger to lips, she pressed a ticket into my hand with no charge. It was worth the effort, for I had the place almost to myself and could wander and wonder, free of chatty guides and pushy groups.
The scale of Cluny speaks of the prosperity enjoyed by the monks, and in time they settled into a life of ease, growing fond of the pleasures of the table, including wine from their choice vineyards. Friar Tuck, with florid face and straining waistband, could have been their mascot. Saint Benedict would not have approved. His Rule specified about half a pint of wine per day as a continent ration, which approximates to today’s recommendation of three units of alcohol per day for a man. Wine was a staple, not a luxury, a nourishing drink that was safer than water, which was often contaminated. It was also needed for sacramental purposes, and when it tasted as good as the best burgundy, it was inevitable that some should fall under its charms.
Change was in the air, and the founding of the Abbey of Cîteaux in 1098 signalled a return to more austere principles. The new Cistercian order took its name from Cîteaux, located to the east of the Côte d’Or on marshy land unsuited to vine growing. Instead, they planted their vineyards and built their winery on a plot of land gifted to them in 1100 at Vougeot, a favoured spot on the Côte. The Clos de Vougeot vineyard is their lasting monument. Its 125 acres (50 hectares) were fully walled by 1330, and that boundary, if not the actual wall, still exists today. As does the château that housed the winery, a squat block bereft of the Disney-esque adornments that decorate the châteaux of the Loire. It is now the headquarters of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, a worldwide brotherhood of Burgundy lovers whose bibulous dinners run more in the tradition of Cluny than Cîteaux.
In reaction to the Benedictines’ excess, the Cistercians adopted a fearsome discipline, with relentless physical labor as a central tenet. They cultivated the vine with rigor and method; they were not content simply to plant, harvest, and ferment. They kept records, enabling them to make judgements and comparisons: between different vineyards, different grapes, different vintages. In short, they raised winemaking from a haphazard activity, where the same mistakes might be repeated year after year, to a strictly controlled process.
No other region could have rewarded their attentions as well as the Côte d’Or with its geological jumble of soil, sub-soil, and bedrock. In simple terms, it is a tear in the earth’s surface caused by vertical slippage, and the monks swarmed over it like ants, working to observe and record. The slippage exposed a multi-decker sandwich of crumbling rock and soil that proved uniquely receptive to the vine. The Cistercians identified the best plots, and it is said they got down on their knees and tasted the soil to do so. They noted where it changed and where a boundary should be drawn between one plot and another, which, though contiguous, yielded observably different wines. Many of their boundaries have survived through the centuries and are unlikely ever to be changed. The monks linked the wine to the plot of land it came from and marked that with a wall, creating enclosed vineyards or clos. Burgundy was made for them and they for Burgundy.
The church was not the only powerful force in the 14th and 15th centuries. By that time Burgundy was a wealthy and powerful duchy, ruled over by the Valois dukes and almost independent of France. The splendor of their court helped spread the word about the equal splendor of the wines. Geographically, Burgundy benefitted from its position on a north-south trading axis linking the Mediterranean with the Low Countries. The links remain strong today, and in summer a huge number of Dutch-registered cars and camper vans, and a fair number of Belgian ones, can be seen creeping through the vineyards or speeding past on the A6. The dazzling patterned roof tiles, seen to good effect on buildings such as the town hall in Meursault, are said to be Flemish in origin. It all ended in tears for the dukes, however, when they overreached themselves, were defeated in battle in 1477, and Burgundy was subsumed back into France.
Just as the monks left their stamp, so too did the dukes—most visibly in the 1443 founding of the Hôtel–Dieu, housing the Hospices de Beaune, which functioned as a hospital until 1971, when it moved to modern premises on the outskirts of the town. It was badly needed; life may have been good at the top of the tree, but for the peasantry it could be grim. The sporadic nature of the Hundred Years’ War between France and Britain, with Burgundy on the British side, intermittently released hordes of rampaging mercenaries into the countryside. They were the seen enemy, while the unseen was the Black Death, which struck high and low, again and again, regardless of one’s station.
The Hospices was founded by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to Duke Philippe the Good, as a charitable institution to relieve the suffering of the sick and indigent, rather than simply as a hospital in the modern sense. It has always been funded by gifts and donations, including parcels of vineyard land, resulting in it now being one of the largest estates in Burgundy, with over 150 acres (60 hectares). The Hôtel-Dieu is worth a visit for its roof alone, renovated in 2009.
If you have ever been a victim of French bureaucracy, if it has ever broken your spirit, leaving you convinced that nothing worthwhile could ever get done in that country, take a trip to Beaune and gaze at the roof of the Hôtel-Dieu. It is a gem, a beautiful celebration of the roofer’s craft. An ocean of graphite slate is enlivened by gorgeous, gold-adorned dormer windows, with countless elaborate details for which the word “whirligig” was surely coined. It is a marvel, a triumph, and if it fails to re-ignite your enthusiasm for all things Gallic, then go back to bed and cover your head . . .
