These last two days we have spent in the beautiful town of Beaune, filled it’s cobble-stoned streets and history of centuries old wine-making. Here is a recap of what we’ve done, seen and eaten.
Our first night here we found a restaurant who’s chef won Top Chef France a few years ago. Since Ravi and are huge Top Chef fans, we decided to find it and make reservations for one of the nights we are here. They said they were booked for dinner for the next 20 days. But they had openings for lunch, so we booked it for Tuesday at 12:15.
The morning of Tuesday we walked a round and got acquainted with the town. We visited the Hotel-Dieu, a hoapital for the poor built in 1443, by the Duke of Burgandy and his wife. Since his wife was a princess from the Flanders, which used colored tiles in their architecture, a lot of the buildings in the Burgandy region hav ethereal beautiful geometric tile designs in their buildings. The hospital was used for centuries through 1971 and was classified as a historical monument in 1862. It was amazing to see what medical advances they used and how well they cared for their people for hundreds of years.
Main hall 
Kitchen 
Kitchen 
Pharmacy 
Pharmacy 
Pharmacy 
Pharmacy 
At 12:15, we went to have our Top Chef restaurant lunch. I had a poached egg with coffee foam, and a fish dish which was amazing. Ravi had foie gras and pigeon. The plates were Top Chef worthy and one to remember.
After lunch, we took a tour in the Patriarch wine caves built underneath the city since the 14th centuries, where they keep over 3 million bottles of wine at time. In the caves we had tastings of 10 different wines.
Today, Wednesday, we enjoyed the farmers market in the morning, did some shopping, the. Ravi wanted pizza for lunch. We found a restaurant ina cave which served authentic homemade food. It was delicious.
In the afternoon, we took a half-day tour with two other couples, of the history and uniqueness of Burgandy’s wine country. Our tour guide Francois, drove us around in his 4×4 Land Rover and was a great story teller. He explained how the Burgandy province has been making wine for over 700 years. Brought over by the Romans to the monks who lived in this region at the time. Today, wine making here is so controlled and over-seen by the government. There are 1247, plots of land and every plot has different soil making them all completely unique. Depending on the richness and complexity of the soil determines if it’s a village, premium or the Grand Cru of the vineyard. A lot of the vines are 70-90 years old. Each bottle of French wine has the village it’s from and the wine maker who made the wine on it. We saw 3 acres of land today which produces only 1000 bottles of wine. Its a Grand Cru, the top of the top of wines, and each bottle sells for $10,000. It was beautiful and interesting to learn why this region is so we’ll known for their wine-making and their wines.
Tomorrow we are off to our next destination. Aix-en-Provence.
