A road trip through Burgundy, France’s legendary wine region Leave a comment
Later in the bar, dessert still lingering on my tongue, I pull down from a shelf a copy of the 1986 Gault & Millau guide and open it to the restaurant’s entry: 35 years ago, Michel Lorain is congratulated on having lured his son, Jean-Michel, into the family business, and is feted as one of France’s four top chefs of the year. Today, Jean-Michel is himself in the process of passing the reins — in this case, to a talented nephew, Alexandre Bondoux. We chat briefly before dinner but he’s subdued: Michel died, aged 87, this summer. “He still had all his faculties and never stopped coming into the kitchen every day, to check that everything was being done right,” Magali Rostan, the property’s marketing manager, says sombrely. Jean-Michel, too, still comes in daily. This place, like the vineyards, is a life’s work — and more: a gift from parents to children, each generation’s role that of caretaker. Despite his sadness, Jean-Michel makes clear that he’s happy to be here, honouring his father’s legacy. And when, next day, I tell him how much I enjoyed my dinner, his face lights up.
The Route Nationale 6 runs past the door — in fact, the Lorain family have built a passage beneath it, so their guests can enter the small town of Joigny more easily by foot — but many people pause here for wonderful food and accommodation, then simply speed on. In keeping with my slow mission, I stroll into the nearby Saint-André Church, with its medieval Pietà, Mary awkwardly clutching a crucified son twice her size. Leaving, I stumble almost immediately on another church, through an archway hewn, like the building beyond, from the region’s distinctive grey-white stone.
I marvel at the precision and detail of St-Jean de Joigny, set high on a hill with superb views down to the river, built long before machinery made things simpler. Inside, the ceiling is intricately carved and there’s an extraordinary, 16th-century marble sepulchre, seven life-size figures gathered in mourning around the dead Christ. More remarkable is the fact that my 10-minute walk back to the hotel passes another church, this one in the Place du Pilori, where guilty townsfolk were once placed in the stocks to be pelted by their righteous neighbours. It’s a reminder that many aspects of the present are an improvement on the past.
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But no medieval peasant here, even if surrounded by churches, could have doubted the importance of Auxerre, just 20 miles away: the pale might of Saint-Étienne Cathedral rises dramatically above the clustered houses and flat, green fields. It would’ve been the largest building most of them ever saw, and its grandeur, as I cross the Yonne into the city, is still breathtaking. I stroll around, admiring stained-glass windows (some dating back to the 13th century) and a marble Joan of Arc, pious on her knees — apparently, she took a break from battling the English to pray here in 1429.
Really, I think, running my finger discreetly down the cathedral’s white stone, it all comes back to land. That’s what Joan was fighting for; that’s what the monks devoted themselves to, learning the differences between each tiny plot and nurturing the vines accordingly. (In fact, there’s a local story that says they used to lick the soil to understand the difference in flavours in this, the world’s most piecemeal wine region.) I realise this very earth is what these buildings are hewn from, too: this calcaire d’Auxerre rock is the same limestone found in the soil, all that remains of an ancient sea. As I drive on, the villages with their pale stones glow like ghosts in the gloaming.
