La Fête du Bouzeron et du Persillé de Bourgogne

Finding myself in Burgundy on a sunny, Sunday April morning with two children aged seven and ten in tow, the obvious event to attend was a wine festival.  Not in their minds perhaps but I had done my fair share of kiddy activities by that stage in the week and a wine festival it was to be despite the chants of “Oh no, Mummy, not more wine”.

Bouzeron is located at the northerly edge of the Côte Chalonnaise and  is something of an oddity being an AOC solely for white wines from the Aligoté grape, the rest of the region focusing on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  Acknowledged as the best area in Burgundy for Aligoté wines, Bouzeron Aligoté has its own AOC – Aligoté from other areas must be labelled Bourgogne Aligoté.  Bouzeron Aligoté, as translated from the Fête programme, is ‘a wine of Spring which is fruity, aromatic and minerally on the nose.  The palate displays further the roundness and suppleness of the Golden Aligoté’, the last point referring to the name of the vines here – Aligoté Dorée.  Clearly the poor relation to Chardonnay in this part of the world, I find Bouzeron Aligoté a great, refreshing (if rather racy at times) wine for summer and it pairs superbly with seafood and soft cheeses (more on that in my next blog post on Burgundy goat’s cheese).

Sunday, April 11th was the occasion of the 11th annual Fête du Bouzeron et du Persillé de Bourgogne (a ham terrine in a white wine jelly made with Bouzeron wine).  We turned up at midday, after a visit to the very lively market in nearby Chagny, and the festival was well underway.  The attractive programme advertised a ticket for €7 which included six tasting samples (of Jambon Persillé or wine, the choice being from white and red Bourgogne, Bouzeron Aligoté and the sparkling Crémant de Bourgogne).  Eschewing the chance to taste more Crémant (I had stocked up on Jean-Claude Breliere’s Crémant earlier in the week in Rully), I plumped for a sample of Jambon Persillé (delicious and stunning with the Aligoté),  four Bouzerons (from Domaines de Villaine, Jacquesson, Chanzy, and Delorme) and a white Bourgogne (Clos de la Fortune) also from Domaine Chanzy which I had read about in a recently purchased book: Food-Wine-Burgundy by David Downie (The Terroir Guides).  The book also recommends the Bouzeron from my local cave in Mazenay – Marinot-Vernay.  I was less taken with their example of Bouzeron although their white Bourgogne is delightful.

All the wines open for tasting at the festival were on sale back at the car park for €7 a bottle but, perhaps unsurprisingly, when I returned to place my order, my top three Bouzerons were already sold out – Domaines Chanzy, de Villaine (co-owners of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti) and Jacquesson.  I did, however, stumble across a Chanzy Bouzeron in the Leclerc supermarket in Beaune but next year I shall be sure to be at the festival early so as to secure the best wines.  As for the Persillé de Bourgogne, I found a recipe in Elizabeth David’s ‘A book of Mediterranean Food’ (oddly) but as it involves calf’s feet and much soaking of hams, I am researching other recipes and I shall soon be giving it a try.

To buy Bouzeron Aligoté in the UK, try Lay & Wheeler and Winedirect.

Winter vines, delicious wines and the pizza van

We were back in Burgundy during half-term week and drove down the autoroute wondering if, after the first eventful weekend in the house in January, more nightmare scenarios would greet us on our arrival.  Would we have another burst pipe?  Would the heating work?  There was snow on the ground and below zero temperatures as we pulled up at the house and it was just getting dark.  The house was uninvitingly cold.  A very dodgy half-hour was spent trying to get the boiler going for the heating and the oven but, thankfully and after many a cross word, it all worked.  That meant time for a glass of wine and we celebrated with a delicious Marsannay Blanc 2006 from Domaine Trappet.  The house was soon snugly warm and the SMEG oven did us proud when it was time for dinner.

During that week, we went backwards and forward to Beaune about a million times, or so it seemed.  There are two possible routes from our house and we found ourselves timing each one to see which was the better track to take.  One way, via names such as Santenay, Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault involves going through four villages with indescribably horrible road humps so we hoped that the other, more picturesque and bump-free route, via Saint Romain, Monthélie, Pommard and Volnay would be the quickest.  Our hopes were dashed but the preferred route has glorious views over the vines and I just loved driving through them every day and look forward to going back a few times, before this year’s vintage, to see the vines in different stages of development.  Now, in February, the vines are being pruned and a familiar site across the landscape is the rising smoke from burning vine clippings.

Whilst we didn’t eat out at all during the week (too much unpacking of furniture and trekking around for white goods), we ate and drank well at home.  The best wines included a red Rully les Montpalais 2007 from Jean-Claude & Anna Brelière with goat’s cheese wrapped in bacon, and a Bouzeron Aligoté 2008 from Domaine Chanzy (silver medal at Mâcon 2009) with linguine, homemade pesto and shavings of parmesan. 

The gastronomic highlight of the week was some mouth-wateringly good Charolais steak, the white Charolais beef being from Charolles in southern Burgundy.  We went non-Burgundy for the wine on this occasion as I had brought a bottle of Emily Laughton’s Occam’s Razor Shiraz 2006 from the much-respected Jasper Hill estate in Heathcote, Victoria.  It was a superb match for the steak and a welcome break from the local wines - as much as I adore Burgundy, it’s good to ring the changes.

A final point to mention: we made a terribly important discovery on this trip – the pizza van is in our village every Friday night and, for every 12 pizzas purchased, we get one free!  Friday night in France will definitely be pizza night.