RUE DES GRANDS CRUS

Yes more wine. The weather has been amazing so it's off on Scoots to do some of the wine roads, passing through an amazing landscape pretty villages and dozens and dozens of degustations. Every other house seems to be a 'domain' with offers of degustation and of course wine sales.

One problem with Bourgogne wine (this is where it gets a bit sommelier, so skip the section if you want) is if you find a particular Bourgogne wine that you really like and would like to buy again, the wine production and labelling in this region is so complex you can virtually never have the same wine again. Unless you have exactly the same year from the same village from the same vintner and from the same field, it will be different. You have to go back to the vintner and ask if he has any of that particular vintage/field left. It becomes more complex as most Clos or fields are in multiple ownership. One person/company owning the first 20 rows, another the next 35 rows etc. The owners of their rows will then harvest their grapes take them to their own premises and make the wine. This will then be labelled differently than the person who owns the next few rows! It rightly should be labelled differently as it will be different as no two vintners will produce the same tasting wine even from the same grapes. Add onto this the 4 gradings of all the wine 'Grand Cru, Premier Cru, Village and Bourgogne'. This complication, and it actually is more complex than I've stated as there are exceptions, does a good job of keeping the price up.

If you think it's very complicated, you're right it is. Good tip, if you buy the cheaper Village classification it's all a lot simpler.

Scoots going well doing the wine roads.

One of the many clos (walled fields) of vines.

Every field is labelled by name of field, hectarage, quality of wine and sometimes the proprietor. Some down to a hectare in size and all very rocky/stoney ground with a touch of clay.

And of course a picnic in the shade. It has been very hot.