News and travels
Our trips away with, wine tours and everything wine.
Beaune and the Italians
A back roads ride through harvest villages to Domaine David Duband to see old Pegasus Bay colleagues Luca and Eric, foot stomping grapes the traditional way, foulage au pied, before cycling home between Premier Cru and Grand Cru vines with a long held idea about NV Wines tours to Champagne and Burgundy coming back into focus.
Beaune
Four days in Beaune start with a solo dinner in a window seat at Le Conty, a day eating and drinking like a local at La Belena, then a long bike ride through Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet to Santenay, chain trouble included, ending with new friends and an opened bottle of Louis Roederer.
Beaune
Being amongst the vines and touching the soil cemented my learning about how moisture is captured in the lower slope and why there is no need for irrigation and how this might dilute the concentration in the grapes. Not that irrigation is allowed in France anyway. Six days on a bike through Burgundy, and the trip that really taught me what terroir means when you can feel it under your feet and in your hands.