Day 4 - South to Saint-Boil (Maconnais)
St Boil is where we stayed when Tour le France passed through.
Day 4 saw us make our way down to the southernmost region of Burgundy, the Maconnais.
Now here’s the thing. While in Beaune we asked for a map of the Maconnais and were told they don’t sell them because it’s not very famous or trendy. HAHAHA well, let me tell you, this region was epic and the wines were magical. It’s incredible and, as I’ve already alluded to, very understated in terms of wine prestige in Burgundy.
We rode through villages surrounded by vines, passed many, many sunflower fields, and rode on roads that were really only farm tracks, which we assumed were access tracks for vineyard owners and employees, but always surrounded by vines.
The Maconnais landscape isn’t as steep, condensed or segmented into prestigious appellations as other areas of Burgundy. It’s more spread out, broken up into what looked like little islands. The riding terrain was just as good as the north, and the cycle path was an old disused railway line that went the whole way down to Macon.
Our route took us to this crazy little village, Saint-Boil. Not exactly a place I’d recommend staying, as there is absolutely nothing there. No wine cave or winery, no cafe or boutique, only one very, very bad restaurant. However our room was lovely and we had a swimming pool, which gave us a chance to open one or two of the bottles we’d bought and make the most of our night here. (We stayed in Saint-Boil. Never stay here!)