Snow!

The sky was blue this morning – it was going to be a good day: breakfast at Le Montrachet with ‘la friend’ then a long walk in the hills above the vines of Santenay.

We rolled up at Le Montrachet about 9:30am and – oops! – closed until 11th January – shock!

It was already getting late, where should we go? La friend had a cracking idea: ‘What about Lameloise?’ Why not I thought! Then came the quote that I will remember for a while: ‘I can’t find Lameloise in my phonebook!’ Like you call Lameloise every day…!

Eventually the google found the number (not easy in Puligny as reception is rubbish) and the call was placed: ‘We’d love to offer you hot drinks, but we can’t offer you any food’! (my exclamation!) So we went to a café in Meursault – also no breakfast possible, but they kindly suggested we could buy croissants and cakes and eat them in the café. A result!

About 11am we went our separate ways and it was time to put on the walking-boots. Long-suffering Elsa would now be able to look sad while walking, instead of sad while just sitting. From Santenay Le Haut we walked up the hill that’s topped by a limestone ridge, though actually it isn’t – when you get to that height you’ll see there’s even further to go – to the ‘three crosses!’ About a quarter of the way up is a tiny hamlet with a fine church – Saint Jean – its roads are being refurbished, but there are a few pretty houses in this secluded place, though only one of them is occupied, a nice man I met walking his dog – he said the rest are all second homes! We headed higher and the views were simply brilliant, patches of vines all the way up past 400m but plenty ‘en friche’ scrub too. Then, just when you expect (maybe) trees to take over, it is just grassland with small bushes, and eventually grazing Charolais too – some big ones.

You top out at 521 metres with the three crosses and a 360° panorama – everything was still frozen up there. The walk down was just as good, and as we got to the bottom, Elsa was finally smiling – it was food time!

It was a beautiful day…

Most of Europe is experiencing plenty of rain. With already water-logged ground, just look what a difference 30 minutes of rain can make – vine-feet that need wellies:

Picture courtesy of Caroline Lestime of Domaine Jean-Noel Gagnard in Chassagne.