Not so sunny today – still the omellette (with everything including chips) in Mercurey’s L’Atelier is worth a stop!

Old buildings eh? A leaky radiator in the apartment – typically it leakes in the middle. Who know that these old radiators are mad up of sections – you take them all apart, remove the broken bit and then re-assemble!

Still, it took 36 hours and the weather was damn cold!

It’s taken far too long, but I finally got to La Lune in Beaune this week – it’s been open for the best part of of a year too – but a mix of good and quite brilliant menu items that are all modestly priced. We washed it down with a bottle of David Moreau’s Côte de Beaune Villages – a wine that’s basically Santenay and totally tasty!

Really hard to get out of the door this morning – some virus was giving me a headache – or maybe that was the lack of sleep – probably both! But a beautiful day and the paracetamol slowly kicked-in. I was amazed to see a number of lizards basking in the sunshine today – already in February!

Worth the effort…

Mainly Mercurey…

Ouf – accounts. I finished January’s at any rate today…

Of-course it’s important to get out – even with a stupid chesty-cough – particularly when there’s a nice colour to the waning sunlight 😉 Playing here with an old manual focus lens – I chose the ones that weren’t too badly focused 😉

Tomorrow I’m off to Mercurey.

Views of Beaune today…

There was some snow at home when I left this morning, but the roads were clear. Plenty of snow about as I traversed eastern France though – particularly around Besançon – but afterwards it faded and everything became green.

I made a stop about 15 minutes from Beaune for a pain-au-raisin and a coffee and the snow suddenly started, but I didn’t think much about it, then I walked out of the services and all was white and I was surrounded by the 20km/h driving-brigade. Ouf! The motorway was already white too – I’d only spent 15 minutes, maybe less, in the service area! Fortunately I was the only one interested in driving in the overtaking lane, so soon lost the 20km-ers. 5 minutes later the road was clear again…

Arriving at Beaune there was no snow – curses! I’d been looking forward to taking a few nice pics with snow and blue sky – oh and some vines too – but then I saw the hills above Pernand were white and thought ‘why not!’

I also had a drive through Echevronne, less than 5 minutes from Pernand which is quite a nice small village – plenty of interesting old houses, in various levels of decay, for sale too. I particularly like ‘the Château’ but I’m assuming that it’s not for sale – or not for a couple of hundred ‘k’ anyway 😉

Then slowly onto Nuits for an appointment, stopping by the Clos de la Marechale to watch the man with the never-ending job – perfecting the wall of the Clos – but he says that’s just for the winter, in the summer he works in the Marechale’s vines instead!

Chablis, like the Côte d’Or, is wet and not particularly cold for the time of year. The temperature has ranged between 4 and 6°C today and the rain has hardly stopped. Actually it rained so hard between 9 and 10pm yesterday, that I decided not to jog – so all the Chablis-based chains were safe – it’s looking like the same for today too!

The ground here is saturated, and the river is high, fast and brown-coloured. Most places look fine after two dry days, but it only needs 15 minutes of rain and all the standing water in the fields returns. The growers really want to see a week or preferably more with significantly minus temperatures – and even if a little snow might arrive tomorrow, it won’t be fulfilling many producers’ wishes. And it’s exactly the same in the Côte d’Or.

I have to say I felt very sorry for people pruning today with the rain driving sideways…

Monday morning I arrive home, planning to head to Chablis for my first appointments on Wednesday – but oups!

7°C in the house. Following a heating-oil delivery, the machine refuses to function, and 7°C is cold, it’s much warmer in the cellar @ 12.5°C! The engineer only gets there at 6pm so I’m dressed like the Michelin-man as I don’t know what time he’ll arrive – and it’s far too cold for typing!

Okay – eventually (seemingly) all is fixed – but I’m not staying as the house will need days to warm-up. Despite the heavy snow, I’m heading to a warmer bed, in Beaune!

Tuesday is snowless and actually quite okay weather in Beaune. It gives me chance to catch up on my typing – a little 😉

I came out of my last appointment, Billaud-Simon, at about 17h10 and noticed a beautiful red light on the hill-top vines. I zoomed up in the car to Les Clos but the last rays of the sun had already departed the vines in those 3 or 4 short minutes. Of-course the sunset lasted a little longer 😉

You will have no-doubt gathered by now that I’m beginning my second week of Chablis 2013 tastings – just one more trip at the end of this month to wrap up 30+ domaines for the January EXTRA! It was a very modest day today – only 3 domaines and about 30 wines…