Back in La Bourgogne - May 14, 2015

Welcome to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s blog about wine, food, people, and culture.  We’re back in Burgundy, a place we’ve come to love for so many reasons, a place where we’ve established friendships, relationships, and not only because of wine.

Above is our plane in Detroit.  I’m fascinated by the sheer size of these things, so big it has two jet bridges for boarding and deplaning.  We can both testify to the fact that the on board experience is the same as for every other plane, pretty much jammed in there.  Sleep was almost impossible. 

We departed at 6:30 p.m. Eastern and arrived Charles de Gaulle at 8:00 a.m. Paris time.  After a bus transfer to the train station in downtown Paris, Gare de Lyon, we trained down to Dijon where we picked up a car and grabbed lunch, including a refreshing Saint-Véran, a Chardonnay from the Maconnais region of Burgundy.  Sorry I don’t have a photo.  

We finally arrived at Magny-les-Villers, our destination, at about 4:30, very fatigued but happy.  This photo shows our gite, which is translated basically to cottage.  It has all the comforts of home, including laundry facilities and full kitchen.  We've learned to travel light and do laundry, shop for a few groceries, and occasionally cook at home with local ingredients.  Marie Zecchini, her son Florent, daughter Severine, and three grandchildren were waiting for us and greeted us enthusiastically.  Bonjour, bonjour!  They’ve become our French family.

I went for a stroll around Magny to unwind after the long journey.  The top of the blog shows a photo of the village from a hillside.

Domaine Cornu is just around the corner, steps away from the gite.

Magny is a wine village, but lots more is going on.  It’s tiny, population 200 (deux cent habitants).  Here’s a back yard with fruit trees and roses.

And strutting around is this free range friend.

Irises are prolific here in Burgundy and are well ahead of ours in Michigan.  I love purple irises.

Here’s the church, the oldest part built by the Romans.

And here’s the village school, which doubles as the city hall and community gathering spot.

As strange as it might seem after such as long trip, Mary cooked for dinner.  That’s because we were even less motivated to go out to a restaurant.  Plus, today is a holiday in France, Ascension Day.

Mary emailed Marie a shopping list ahead of our arrival and Marie had everything on hand for us.  Saucisse aux herbes, champignons blanc, poirve rouge, oignons, ail, pommes de terre, which is sausage with herbs, white mushrooms, red bell pepper, sautéed onions and garlic, and potatoes.
  

Marie picked up a nice cheese for us, Saint Marcellin, a soft cow’s milk cheese from the town of the same name near Lyon, a couple of hours south of us.

We asked Marie to get a recommendation from Alex Cornu at Domaine Cornu.  We’ve visited him before and actually hoped to walk around there and see him today, but I guess he wasn’t available on the holiday.

Alex suggested a Côte de Nuits-Villages from a vineyard right here in the village, Le Clos de Magny.  It was very young, a 2012, and had fresh, bright aromas and flavors of red cherry, raspberries, and strawberries, good acidity, a smooth texture, and paired nicely with dinner.  It wasn’t highly complex, but it was a solid red Burgundy that hit the spot for a couple of tired travelers.

That’s our post for today.  Thanks for reading us at Cépage et Cuisine.  We’ll be here for a week or so, then take a couple of days to transition to Bordeaux.  We’ll post up a blog post whenever we can with photos of our adventures.  In the meantime,

Cheers,

Brian♥Mary