We went to Champagne and Burgundy over Easter primarily to meet a couple who are very good friends and to catch up, later, with an old Australian friend of mine who was on a wine buying trip. You cannot make a trip to these regions without sampling some really exquisite wine to go with the excellent cuisine.
We drove down from London to stay for the first night in the Château d'Etoges which is located, you've guessed it, in the village of Etoges about 20 kms from Epernay. Our rooms were well appointed but not luxurious. You stay in this Château to eat the gourmet food and you do not want to be driving afterwards; the wines are too tempting.
The restaurant in the orangery was excellent and the food and wine were superb. For the starters we drank a non-vintage Champagne from Borel- Lucas which is a family run grower producer.
This Champagne was excellent and accompanied our sea food admirably. The wine had its own individual character which respects the terroir and the tradition of region.
If you visit their website you will see that their wines are exceptionally good value for money and especially their Cuvée Soleil d'or Grand Cru.
With our meat course we drank a bottle of Bouzy Rouge produced by Bara. Bouzy is one of the top Champagne Grand Cru villages situated in one of the best locations on the Montagne de Reims. The village is more famous for its Champagne. Bouzy Rouge producers in the village make this still red wine from Pinot Noir grapes.
Bara makes a classic example of the wine, which is spicy and has a flavour of strawberries and cherries and a mineral overtone reminiscent of Burgundy's Epineuil.
It is a good job my wife paid the bills as she must have been saving up a long time to pay a visit to this Château. We left the following morning very satisfied but much poorer. We arranged for all of us to meet again, later in the weekend, at another fine dining restaurant in Nitry.
http://www.etoges.com/
http://boutique.champagne-borel-lucas.com/
On Good Friday morning we made our way back from Etoges to the village of Moussy, some 3 or 4 kms from Epernay. In anticipation of meeting our friend, Phill Meyer, on Easter Sunday evening we booked a room in the Auberge Champenoise. Phill and his partners from Wisdom and Wine, Melbourne, had arranged a tasting R Renaudin on Easter Monday. Renaudin is a grower producer based in the village so we popped in to buy a case of his non-vintage Brut.
http://www.wisdomandwine.com.au/
We ate lunch in the Auberge washed down by a couple of glasses of their own label Champagne which is supplied by the Co-operative Vinicole in the neighbouring village of Pierry. The Champagne was of standard but good quality and it had a traditional taste.
Later in the afternoon we headed on down to Troyes to visit the family and taste the Renaudin Champagne as an aperitif. Every member of the family has strong views about Champagne but we all agreed that the Renaudin NV was a really good traditional tasting Champagne - a fine tribute to Phill who had done his research well and found a good one. We washed down the evening meal with a Minervois red and a Bandol red. The Bandol was particularly good.
The next day we set off for Nitry which is near Chablis in Burgundy. We planned to visit Tonnerre on the way and made our way south to stop off in the Aube town of Ervy le Châtel. We ate at the Hôtel and Café Restaurant Franco Belge. This restaurant was incredible value for money. The belly pork was perfectly cooked and well seasoned and was accompanied by a savoury source. The chips were some of the best I have ever tasted.
They only sold Champagne by the bottle, but my wife was driving so I settled for a small pichet of Saône-et-Loire Vin de France red which was probably made from the Gamay grape; it and was not so bad and went perfectly with the pork and its sauce. We had a three course meal for two people with wine for around 30 Euros so I volunteered to pay- what a cheapskate. The food was of a similar quality to the restaurant at the Château d'Etoges. The presentation was not as fine but in terms of value for money it put its gourmet cousin into the shade.
We stopped off at Tonnerre to visit the wine fair and buy a case of my favourite Bourgogne Epineuil Rouge from the producer Alain Mathias. There was no need to taste it as its quality is guaranteed - for me anyway.
http://www.domainealainmathias.com/
In the evening we re-joined our friends who were booked into the Auberge de la Beursaudiere Nitry. We joined them at the restaurant but had to stay at the more basic hotel La Grange de Marie which to be fair was very clean and exceptionally quiet.
Once again we had excellent food which tasted just as good as the Château d'Etoges but was presented in a more basic style. We washed this down with a bottle of Crémant de Bourgogne as an aperitif and also darnk during the fish course.
For the meat, I recommended Christophe Ferrari 2008 Irancy red. This is of a similar quality to the Epineuil. It had a cherry flavour with a mineral taste derived from the Kimmeridgian based soils which run through Irancy, Chablis, Epineuil and even the Aube wine district in Champagne.
http://www.irancy-ferrari.com/
http://www.beursaudiere.com/
After breakfast my wife and I headed off back to Moussy to meet Phill. We all dined at the Auberge. The Auberge Champagne was nowhere near the same quality as the Renaudin non-vintage Brut, and for me it had a slightly bitter aftertaste . For the meat course we selected the Bara Bouzy Rouge; other diners were drinking the same so they obviously had good taste. Over supper we conversed about Champagne, the producers and their methods of production. What else could we talk about other than wine?
The next day we had lunch in the restaurant Le Bateau Lavoir at Damery. Of course the three us had a glass of Champagne for an aperitif. My wife was driving again so she could only sip at the still wines with the fish and meat courses.
http://www.au-bateau-lavoir.com/
For the fish course Phill ordered a Victor Hertz Alsace Gewurztraminer another superb wine which is fruity and spicy and it matched the fish so well. Alsace wines are under-rated without justification and for this reason they do not fetch such high prices as the equivalent quality Burgundy or Bordeaux. Anyone in the know can find bargains in Alsace; so it pays to study wine just a little bit.
http://www.hachette-vins.com/le-guide-hachette-des-vins/victor-hertz-cuvee-du-vigneron-2008-20114964.html
For the meat course Phill ordered a René Durand 2007 Corton Le Rognet red. This was top class wine which is typical of the Corton terroir; a well structured wine which I described as a little sinuous - what more can I say?
We rushed Phill back to Moussy to rejoin his Wisdom and Wine partners to meet R Renaudin. I hope they struck a deal so that Melbourne wine lovers can enjoy another very good wine. This grower producer also makes a Premier Cru Champagne which he sources from grapes grown on his parcels of land in the next village of Pierry, which has the Premier Cru classification unlike Moussy - such are the complexities
of Champagne and its appellation rules.
http://www.r-renaudin.com/
We returned to London with empty wallets but we have happy memories of good friends and family and the conviviality that we shared with them over excellent food and wine. Champagne and Burgundy are two of my favourite regions and I recommend that you visit them.
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