Bicycles, Burgundy
and bons viveurs

Published by how to spend it, Financial Times | By Tom Harrow

Wine Chap embarks upon a four-day cycling tour in France’s exalted wine region

“…Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people…” Such sentiments from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII sum up my last trip to Burgundy – if the final “good” can translate as happy, inspired, grateful, replete, slightly saddle-sore and mildly hungover. The latter quality I blame entirely on unnecessary quantities of 1960s Calvados from the bar at Le Pic in Beaune, and not on the array of fine wines enjoyed throughout.

I’d intended to meet my guests in Paris at Thierry Breton’s quiveringly hip La Pointe du Grouin – an establishment that takes no reservations (of course), uses its own currency, serves magnums, most things on the succulent menu are less than €12, and where there are more beards than a Socialist Workers’ theme party. However, it was a Sunday/public holiday/strike day or some such, so was closed and we ended up dining at the most contrasting restaurant imaginable – Paris’s oldest and arguably most tourist-beloved – Le Procope, where Napoleon would leave his hat in lieu of payment. Still, I enjoyed the fleshy langoustines and a Sorbe Quincy of respectable age, thankfully the last Sauvignon Blanc I would have to drink all week.

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