France Trip (Help!)

Wife and I are deciding to go to France for 7-8 full days in July. This would be our first trip to French wine regions. I have yet to do the real research, but my thought is to try and hit both Burgundy & Rhone, 2 days in another town not Paris, and then two days in Paris. Was thinking Lyon could serve that purpose of the second town. Was thinking one could do 3 wineries per day.

If anyone has any major or minor advice, I am all ears! And thank you in advance!

1. 3 Days Beaune wine tasting
   Land in Paris and head to Beaune. Take the train and hire a guide (versus drinking and driving for 3 wineries per day?). And then rent a car for rest of trip to Lyon to Paris.
   Not sure if goal is to visit winemakers I don’t really have access to outside of a visit like this with a guide (e.g. Rousseau), those I have in my cellar/losing access to (Duroche), or those I plan on buying going forward. Also not sure if any of these geographies make sense/is doable (mixing Vosne/Gevrey/NSG etc.).
   Day 1: Hudelot Noellat, Duroche, Rousseau
   Day 2: Lafarge, Faiveley, JMT Bouley
   Day 3: Chevillon + Eugeneie/Bertheau/L’Arlot/Roty/Felettig/Pacalet

2. 3 days Lyon/Dijon
   Day 1: Lyon
   Day 2: Cote Rotie Tastings (Jamet, Xavier Gerard, ??) - hire a guide/driver or go myself
   Day 3: Lyon

3. 2 days Paris

Sounds like a blur.

Allemand is in Cornas, so I would not try to visit him on the same day as two C-R producers, especially starting and ending in Lyon.

If you want to spend the night in Lyon, I would consider leaving for Ampuis/Condrieu (Xavier Gerard is there) in the morning and tasting there, then driving down to Tournon and sleeping there. Next day taste in Hermitage and/or St. Joseph and/or Cornas and spend the night in Valence. I think you can catch a TGV from there to Paris in the morning.

Thanks Dave. What if we just stayed in Lyon and visited Xavier Gerard and Jamet? I had saw on google search they were 45 min away from Lyon? I would like to avoid too many transfers if possible… Paris/Beaune/Lyon would be 3 cities and the most I think we’d do for this trip. We could stay somewhere else besides Lyon as well (although it would be nice to be close enough to Lyon to spend a day there if so desired).

I haven’t tried commuting to Ampuis from Lyon and back but that sounds much more doable.

That is a beautiful drive but not really easy. The Beau Rivage is near Ampuis and could provide a good base for Cote Rotie/Hermitage/St Joseph visits.

Cornas is 1 hour 40 minutes drive from Lyon. Allemand was a very tough booking for us, and we had to re-shuffle/cancel other bookings to accomodate, as Thierry was a 1-man operation and very, very busy.

Ampuis and Condrieu, where Jamet (assume it’s JP-Corinne’s) and Xavier Gerard are respectively, are at most 55 minutes drive from Lyon. Had visited Jamet and Corinne was a great hostess with good restaurant recommendations in Lyon. JP and JL, then, were too busy with operations to attend to us.

For more manageable visits, all with required appointments that are dependent on the hosts availability, stick with 2 nearer wineries. Ampuis to Lyon and back were easy-comfortable drives.

Seems like way too much travel. I would split the time evenly between Burgundy and Paris. I think in the end you will have a much better experience.

I agree with Robert; I think you’re trying to do way too much in too few days.

Is 3x winery a day too much for Burgundy?

3 to me is a lot because (again to me) most of the fun of burgundy is seeing the land, walking around the famed vineyards etc. seeing what makes leroy different )
if you’ve done that a ton of times, more producer visit makes sense.

And 7-8 days is a lot for more than 2 cities.
If anything stay more days in both paris and Beaune. And while in Beaune, do a 1 hr drive- dayp trip to jura to check out chateau chalon views…

Six of us have chartered a barge to sail southern Burgundy next year. We will be visiting these wineries:

1. Domaine Drouhin-Laroze, Gevrey-Chambertin
2. Domaine Michel Noëllat, Vosne-Romanée
3. Domaine Michel Arcelain, Pommard
4. Château de Meursault, Meursault, private tasting of back vintages
5. Domaine Gérard Thomas et filles, Saint Aubin

I agree with others, that it’s an unrealistic schedule, unless you prefer transiting to time spent enjoying yourselves

Sometimes it’s good in such situations to fall back on your objectives, and if you don’t have any for the trip, it’s worth going all the way back to set them out.

It seems wine is definitely on the agenda, but is anything else like art, (high) culture, (simple) culture, ticking off some bucket-list stuff, scenery etc. vying for a place. Try to think of a ‘must have’ experience each, something that is non-negotiable. Then see if there is a secondary aim each that might be satisfiable in a relatively short trip.

That hopefully ends up with a 2 location trip, ~3.5 days in each. Not long at all, but at least with 3.5 days you’ll actually see and experience something when there. Have each location majoring on one of the key objectives, such that each day has time set aside to address it.

One thought for Burg, is if you like Macon wines, you could base yourselves there, which also puts you a stone’s throw from Beaujolais (it was literally ‘over that hill’ from the winery chambres d’hote we stayed at. That effectively gives you easy access to two significantly different wine regions in one location.

How hard will it be to get tastings in mid-July? With harvest moved up to August these days…?

No but it makes for rushed visits in some cases due to schedules. I have done it many times. I prefer 2/day with trips to explore the vineyards with wine and cheese.

I personally think that you won’t have a lot of problems if you have connections.
Unfortunately, it has become more difficult for visits. If you have a friend or importer who can sponsor you, you will be much happier. If you have a personal connection, this won’t be a problem.

piling on—too much travel and too many domaines. Do one in morning, have a lunch, wander the village and vineyards, do a second domaine. Spend time in Beaune and Dijon. See the land. Relax. Don’t rush.

Thanks to the thoughts on this thread. Thinking of modifying, to move up trip to 1st week of July (from the 2nd week) and basically cut out Paris.

• Day 1: Fly into Paris red-eye. Do some targeted shopping that Friday. Head to Beaune in late afternoon/evening or spend night in Paris and head to Beaune in AM.
• Day 2,3,4: Three full days in Beaune (although I would like to visit Dijon one of the days)
• Day 5: Head to Lyon at some point
• Day 6,7,8: Three full days in Lyon (although one afternoon/day visiting Cotie Rotie producers if I can get the appointments)
• Day 9: Fly out of Lyon

This will be first time in Beaune and Lyon. Thinking we ?rent a car for departure from Paris to Beaune and to Lyon? to have a car in Beaune; and return it in Lyon.

With your somewhat tight timeline, I’d say take the comfortable and less than 2 hours TGV from Paris to Lyon ( 2.5 hours to Dijon) and pick up and return your rental car at the train stations. Just getting into and out of Paris can be a slow frustrating process, if you get caught in a rush-hour traffic build-up.

I think Ramon might mean take the TGV from CDG direct to Dijon or Lyon? (No need to go into Paris).

Dijon is fun for a stop, TGV there, walk around, then get to your local destination or spend the first night there and then pick up your car.

While Paris is my first choice, going into town for just the first jet lagged half day seems like too much travel friction time. Dijon is on the way, Paris not necessarily.