I'm Ron Burgundy?
This is the beginning of what I am sure will be the constant realization of Holy Shit! I can’t believe I am here and doing this. We wake up the next morning, pack BOTH our bags, woot woot! Say goodbye to the best Airbnb we have had so far on the trip, no reason not to celebrate a 1 out of 2 win, we map our way to Dijon. Turns out Dijon is a very cute city in the heart of Burgundy. When I first started studying wine in a serious manner the Burgundy region seemed very elusive to me, so many tiny vineyards with an unimaginable amount of owners. Don’t even get me started on soil types!! I envisioned the region to be past my comprehension and it took a long while for me to ever feel truly comfortable with the region. Persistence is key, and eventually you just teach yourself in a way you can understand. Sometimes you need someone else to teach you to teach yourself in a way you can understand, which is what happened for me with Burgundy and Italy. But, today is not the day to discuss Italy.
Before we make it fully into Burgundy we have some time and decide to stop and briefly explore Aÿ, another important town in the Champagne region. I have only ever encountered this town on a wine label, never in my life did I think I would be visiting it. Frank and I have arrived during siesta so everything except one café and a shop that sells lotto tickets and beer. It is also harvest/crush time so as we walk around streets empty of people and cars we notice that the streets and sidewalks are littered with crushed grape skins. They are everywhere and every champagne house we walk past has workers lunching while surrounded by empty bins that very recently had clusters of grapes in them. Peering down a few side streets, sitting where every they fit are one ton plastic bins haphazardly stacked or there are larger bins full of either discarded grape stems or pressed skins that the winery no longer needs. The more we walk the more I look at Frank with the question of “How on Earth did we get here?” burning in my eyes.
Who are we to randomly stroll down these empty streets that just moments ago were bustling with a tradition that goes back more generations than either of us can imagine. The air smells like grapes and has enough moisture in it that you can imagine the taste of grape on your tongue. It’s magical and eerily quiet as if the town is an empty house welcoming us to what few get to see and feel. It is less and more than I expected. Kind of like walking on the live location set of Beauty and the Beast, everything set up, it’s smaller than you would guess yet, you can tell when people are around they all stride from place to place with purpose. I suppose they have purpose, we didn’t stick around to taste any wine after their extended lunch break. I have to drive and we have places to be.
Off we go to after “just one more” espresso and quickly walk through the greeting of a light drizzle of rain back to our car. Once inside, we plug in directions and a podcast and head on our way. For this being a Burgundy post I am going to cover more of Champagne than I thought. “I’m Ron Burgundy?” The rain is coming down with enough force to not be ignored but not at a day ruining amount. As we head further south on the D13 Arreniers I have to turn off the podcast because of the signs I am seeing. From the moment we left the city limits in Reims (Champagne) we have been seeing vineyards, each with signs announcing a name I wasn’t too familiar with. These signs though, they are displaying names like Deutz, Veuve Cliquot, Philliponat, and Moét & Chandon. These aren’t just a great opportunity to name drop y’all, these are vineyards of wines I have drank under numerous circumstances and it is a humbling experience to see something that we never thought we would.
This trip, this drive, this moment, was one that neither of us had put on our docket of things we would do. No back-burner travel adventure or “I have it on my list to definitely do someday” status. This crazy adventure we are on is unbelievable to both of us and we are currently doing it!! It’s simply nuts to us y’all. I wish I had a better vocabulary to articulate the stunned yet thrilled emotions of it. We giggle, we high five, we joke about every new famous vineyard we pass and take it all in. This drive is one I recommend to anyone and everyone. Even if you aren’t into Champagne (which let’s face it, if you aren’t you should be! I’m judging you.) it is incredibly beautiful with slope after slope and gently rolling lands covered in vines that have been cultivated in the region over several hundred years.
Slowly yet too quickly the names of signs went from Champagne Houses to Burgundy regions. The big sign that announced Burgundy was also a prominent indicator that we had indeed made it to our intended area. We made sure to stop a few times along the way to make sure we had all the wine we could need for our first night in Burgundy. Our Airbnb is a win and in a big way. There isn’t just a very comfortable bed, that bed has its very own room and there is a living room folks. After being on foreign roads for about 2 weeks a living room makes us feel like we are in a mansion. Our host was the absolute sweetest, the bathroom had a tub, and we had no idea how much we liked these feature’s in a home until we spent time not having them. As much as we just wanted to do all the activities we had room for, because we now have “so much more room for activities” we must feed and to figure out the public transit system. Thankfully the bus system is great and we had no trouble finding the stop very close by.
While we head into the city center we take in what the city has to show. More buildings and houses than I thought there would be. That’s probably very biased of me. It’s likely about the size of Topeka and everyone always thinks because Topeka is in Kansas, that it is some tiny country town. I guess I understand better where they are mentally on that. It definitely isn’t Paris, but it sure ain’t a one-horse town. We hop off near one of the most famous buildings in the area, La Chouette de Dijon and proceed to allow wanderlust to guide us. We snap a few pictures while taking in our new surroundings and home for the next few days. One the map we find a restaurant called Dr. Wine that boosts a local cuisine and wine list and mosey towards it.
We have to scramble through a (what is very random to us, perhaps it’s a usual occurrence) of about 200 young kids, like 14-17 years young. About a dozen of them where wearing costumes and they were definitely loitering. What appeared to be locals were also trying to swim through this crowd but in the opposite direction. Since the young ones were just standing still like chatty non-zombies, anyone wanting to get through in any direction were reminded how Salmon must feel every season. Word to the wise, don’t eat Salmon that have spawned! Do however, eat snails and beouf Bourgogne while drinking Bourgogne. Which is exactly what we did.
This is where I decide to share how awkwardly and embarrassing I can be while feeding. When I sit down to eat I tend to be very focused on the food. I desperately want to eat and usually don’t talk much when I eat. I get ridiculously excited when I see any plate of food. My eyes light up at any plate that passes within 3-5 feet, okay fine 10 feet, of me. Never mind that I haven’t even ordered yet, or that it can’t be what I ordered, either because I have just ordered it or because what is on the plate is not what I ordered. It matters not to my hope, and I sit straight up damn near every time with expectation and joy of that food being set in front of me. I genuinely think to myself, how nice of someone to know I was so hungry and just randomly send me food. This is my mind people, and I can’t help it.
The food we for real ordered arrives and I am delighted to try escargot for the first time in Burgundy. This is a big deal for me, I can recall the very first time I ever had this dish. I was in high school, my dad and I had gone to dinner and he wanted to try them. You’ll see this theme a lot. I was excited because I am a teenager eating out in public and not at home. He refused to tell me what escargot meant. They arrive on our table, little tiny mounds of what I assume is a meat of sorts, sitting in a divot filled with what smells like warm liquid and covered in specks of green stuff. It smells wonderful! The liquid must be butter and the green stuff herbs. I have about 7 seconds of waiting to make sure that my pops doesn’t die when he eats one and I pop one in my mouth. Game over folks, snails are hella delicious!! I cherish this moment with my father. He probably didn’t realize it but he was teaching me a real-life moment to not judge based on a label.
The snails in front of me are similar in cooking fashion but different in the fact that they have their shells. Even if not knowing what Escargot meant, you would know what you’re eating. They are just as delicious as I remember. They are also, kind of hard to get out of the shell. The utensil that was given to us for this dish included a small fork and clamps that were hinged so you had to squeeze them to get them to open. The clamp part had a design cut out of them and upon use I think that design is superfluous to its function. This trip has continued to prove to us that ego is pointless, tonight’s dinner was a shining reflection of that point. After clamping that first shell and tasting the deliciousness it provided, I got excited and I also got a little cocky. A very bad combination fam. I picked up that shell clamper with my left hand, positioned it around the second shell, released my hold on the tension and y’all that snail went air born!! Didn’t hit the table once as it shot like a rock from a slingshot back towards me, barley missing my armpit to land squarely and greasily on my brand new down jacket that I had placed well behind our table so it wouldn’t be in the way. Frank is startled, I start laughing, and thank your universe, no one else saw what happened. I reach behind me to pick up the snail, (of course I still ate it!!) and put it back where is belonged. We will just say I ate with a bit more caution the rest of the evening. The wine was wonderful, the Beef de Bourgogne was excellent and with full tummy we were ready to call it a night. 'Operation Dijon' is a success.
Church In Äy
Empty streets in Äy
Me being a dweeb in Äy.
