While the name of this village in Burgundy may trigger memories of Camus’ L’étranger for some, the infamous Meursault was named after a bottle of wine. Meursault wines are famous, are usually a guarantee of good quality, and often come with a price tag to match. Camus clearly had some spare cash at the time he was writing.
First evening in Meursault
We arrived at six o’clock in the evening after a twelve hour trip from home in London and settled into our hotel for the night. Itching to stretch my legs (and get away from the family for a few precious moments), I took a short walk around the village square and promptly found the nearest cat. He was a handsome fellow who didn’t seem to appreciate my loving gaze, getting up in a huff and moving thirty centimetres further away. As soon as I headed back we went to dinner of which the highlight was a beautiful Bourguignonne sauce. This is made rich and deep by the reduction of Burgundy red wine.
Trip to Beaune
Meursault is a very small, albeit beautiful village, so we took a trip to Beaune. Beaune is the nearest town, approximately a twenty minute drive away from Meursault, and a nightmare to find parking in. Fortunately the visit to the Hôtel de Dieu made up for this. The Hôtel de Dieu is an former hospice for the poor, founded by a medieval philanthropist equivalent. I wanted to begin submerging myself in the language, so I chose to have my audio guide in French. Although this naturally meant I didn’t necessarily pick up on all the information, it’s a start, and I was encouraged by realising how broad my vocabulary was in areas of religion, architecture, and healthcare.
My main reason for wanting to visit the Hôtel de Dieu was the vibrantly coloured roof tiles. Since the medieval times, the roof – and many other parts of the hospice – have been restored. Nonetheless, it makes a lovely spectacle, and original roof tiling is on display in the Salle Saint-Nicholas. The hospice functioned threefold as a hospital, chapel, and apothecary, and was active until the 1980s. Now there is a modern hospice in use – the original location is purely a heritage site.
We discovered that the local market was on in the town when we walked out of the exit straight into it. However, lovely as all its delights appeared, food and a sit-down was more on our minds as we scouted for a lunch cafe. Fed and watered with salad and enormous bruschetta, we lamented that a pre-booked wine-tasting didn’t leave us any more time to explore Beaune, and drove back to Meursault.
Wine-tasting
Rather than risk death by walking to our wine-tasting on the fast road, we took the scenic route of paths through the vineyards of Meursault. My dad remarked that the aural and visual similarity between the French ‘dégustation’ and the English ‘disgusting’ is quite unfortunate. This is especially so given that almost every vineyard and château we passed was marked with a sign of ‘dégustation’; it could be quite misleading for an ignorant English tourist! We were greeted at Caveau Molliard with a warm welcome. Our host led us upstairs to watch a short film about the production of wine and its importance in the Burgundy region. The English language aspect of this was a relief to my dad.
Following our film, we got down to the real business: wine-tasting! In the same way that if you go to a tea-tasting you should drink the white/green teas before any black teas, so you also taste the white wines before any red wines. This prevents the tannins from sticking to your taste-buds and clouding your perception of the flavour.
The first wine we tasted was a young, fresh, acidic white Saint Romain, which is a village nearby to but not in Meursault itself. Wine classification in Burgundy is done by terroir. This is because of the uniqueness of the soil of different plots, villages, and regions; these are also the ways in which a wine gets its label. Done regionally, wine could be marked ‘Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune’, meaning the grapes could be from any village or plot in that region. If the grapes are from a number of different plots in one village, the bottle takes the village name, like Saint Romain or Meursault. Then if the wine is a premier cru from one specific plot, it could take the name of the plot on the label. However, from a marketing perspective, people don’t necessarily know what the names of the different Meursault plots are, so winemakers often either add the village name to the label, or just use the village name instead of the plot in order to appeal to customers.
We tasted two other whites – the last of which was a Meursault premier cru, and agreed that we preferred this to the other two villages. Then we tasted a Mercurey red, a Aloxe-Corton premier cru, and a grand cru. I enjoyed the first two of those most as the last had more tannin than I would usually enjoy. Fortunately for our pockets, a Meursault wine-tasting is far cheaper than buying a bottle. Skipping back through the vineyard fields, I enjoyed a seemingly fairytale view as we passed the Château de Cîteaux.
The final 14 hours
I managed to squeeze in a quick nap before wandering around with my mum to find a sunset view in the village. This is the best we managed.
Despite all my well-meaning attempts at meat avoidance (something much more difficult in France), when I sat down and saw snails on the dinner menu, I felt obliged to try them. This was on the basis that a) I’m going to be living in France for a year and ‘did you eat snails’ will of course be a question asked when I return; and b) in the ever increasingly likely event that I turn vegetarian in the next few years, it’s satisfying to know that I won’t have missed out on this delicious experience. Fried in tempura batter, in a creamy garlic and parsley sauce with croutons, I could not hope for a better first taste of snail.
Breakfast (an almond and chocolate croissant) was much more in keeping with my efforts. Thankfully the bakery was right next to our hotel – perfect for an early morning getaway to our next stop. The smell of croissants was very pleasant to have wafting into my nostrils when I woke up in the small hours from being overheated.
I would highly recommend visiting Meursault for its beauty, its wine, and a thoroughly enjoyable gastronomic heaven.
A plus,
Zoe x
An Aixpat-en-Provence 