Hi this is Gary here! Newcomer from Hong Kong and first time posting here.
I will be heading to Champagne and Burgundy in late June/early July.
For Burgundy, thanks to others who kindly shared their amazing trips to Burgundy, I started to have more ideas about where we can potentially visit (but of course not to the one which more connections are needed). But still it is a big pain in arranging any appointments. We’ve now secured Pierre Vincent, Bader-Mimeur, Michel Gros but still hoping to visit 2-3 more. For domaines that I’ve seen often on the board, tried to reach out Mugneret-Gibourg and they need to reduce visits due to the smaller quantities harvested in recent years. Also did give a try to Dujac but yet to receive a response. Apart from big houses that offer paid tastings, are there any other domaines that also welcome appointments apart from professionals?
And do you recommend to go for 2 or 3 domaines a day in practice?
I would honestly say 2 is good, I wouldn’t pressure too much with 3. The only reason is really spending time in cellars, and having a leisurely lunch will eat up a good chunk of the day - one morning, one afternoon. Jeremy’s tastings at Dujac are quite fantastic - so hopefully he gets back to you! I really like the tasting/tour at Henri Gouges - and given its breadth of NSG, it is a delight to taste - a paid tasting yes, but given quality, a nice spot as well. It certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing to contact a few folks and see if you can visit. Pousse d’Or seems to be quite friendly and accomodating in Volnay (they coravin out of bottles, so I think they welcome folks quite often) and it’s a broad tasting. Genot Boulanger in Meursault is one I’m planning on next time, along with some old favorites. With the short 2024 and 2025, those who don’t do tasting may not be willing to invite a ton of folks in, but it’s worth asking!
I’ll be out in Bordeaux/Burgundy around the same time - it is a lovely time of year to visit.
I think 2 is max, or even just 1 if you are going to have long lunch and dinner at restaurant that have extensive wine list. One of the reason to go to Burgundy is to dine and open bottles from the restaurant wine list.
Tastings have no bearing on lunch or dinner wines for me - and we open lots and lots of bottles every day. That’s why I spit everything at a tasting - except the Montrachet. Two tastings per day is very relaxed. Three can be done pretty easily if you do two after lunch within walking distance and you keep them to an hour. 4 or more is definitely marathon pace, which doesn’t interest me.
Thanks for the detailed feedback! I hope Dujac could be on the list at the end. Haven’t considered Volnay yet but will definitely look to your recommendations.
I agree that two is the easiest and four is too hectic. Three can work well, but it does depend on distance and the exact timing.
It’s also tricky because unless you are a repeat customer with wineries and know what to expect, there is often a fair amount of uncertainty around how long the visit will last. I suppose the average stay is 60-90 minutes, but sometimes you get unlucky and they whisk you in and out in 30 minutes, in which case you can fit more wineries. But other times things click and you stay 2-3 hours, and I often prefer to be open to letting that happen when planning my schedules.
The “right way” to do visits in Burgundy really depends on how you travel and what you’re looking to do in Burgundy. If you’re primarily focused on visiting Domaines, you can do 4*. If you’re more focused on long lunches, then two may be the way to go. If you want to spend a lot of your time wandering through the vineyards, that’s another consideration. It’s personal preference and there’s no wrong choice.
In general, Domaines are unlikely to do long visits if they don’t know you and you haven’t been before. You are also likely to be sharing a visit with another group, which often leads to a rather different experience than when you’re seeing a winemaker you’ve been friend with for 10 years who will open a few bottles from his cellar to share. A standard visit is about an hour and Domaines have different ways of softly enforcing that (and in some cases less than softly); if you haven’t been to a Domaine before, expect that to be the case. Burgundians are pretty relaxed about timeliness if they know you, but much less so if they do not.
You can also make timing a lot easier with geographic coordination. Burgundy is small, so doing even 4 per day is not that hard if you get that right - going from one domaine in Morey to another can be literally walking across the street. But racing from Meursault to an appointment in Gevrey is not fun and will take up a lot of time, especially if you get stuck behind a tractor. Two morning visits in the Cote de Nuits leaves you plenty of time for a nice lunch at Le Soufflot with a bottle of Coche and a 3:30 visit in Meursault.
Finally, as far as which Domaines welcome visitors - they all do, unofficially. It’s just a question of which one will say yes to a first time visitor. The more famous ones are deluged with requests and some of them are less than thrilled about it (and tell stories of tourists camping out at their front doors hoping to get a visit). So I would not be surprised at rejections from more famous Domaines who don’t have paid tasting rooms, but hey - nothing ventured, nothing gained.
*We once did 5 visits in one day with a lunch at Ferme in between. There was definitely a bit of stress involved and were half an hour late to one appointment Of course, we started at 8:00 am and I haven’t done it again, lol.
Thanks for that! and also echo what @Rahsaan_M mentioned, the duration of a visit has also been a struggle for me to plan things ahead.
We do try to put one day in Meursault and Montrachet, while another two days in Cote de Nuits, hope that would give us more time in between and being less stressed about being late
Of course, we started at 8:00 am and I haven’t done it again, lol.