Our parade of memorable meals was added to in Burgundy by one really remarkable dinner and an excellent luncheon. For dinner we were guests of the Syndicat des Négociants en Vins Fins de Bourgogne in their headquarters. There were some notable wines, among them a Meursault Genevrières 1946, which was delicate and flowery, and a 1929 Demoiselle-Montrachet, which was sheer molten gold and so delicious it should have been crowned with some special type of honor. The Nuits St. Georges, Château de Gris 1929, which we drank with our pheasant, and the Clos Vougeot 1923, which accompanied the cheese, were both aristocratic examples of the grandeur of red Burgundy.
The food, too, offered us specialties of the district: brochet en croûte, which added another style to our repertoire of dishes featuring pike; jambon à la crème, one of the noblest dishes from that particular region, and a savory pheasant. It may interest you to know that a woman prepared this dinner for twenty-five of us in a very small kitchen. It was a major accomplishment!
Luncheon the following day offered by the Chamber of Commerce of Beaune was another journey into gastronomic excitement. A wonderful tarte au foie gras, an excellent poulet demi-deuil, and a perfectly cooked gigot were the outstanding dishes, with some amusing frivalités bourguitgnonne to begin with. The outstanding wine was the Chambertin 1928, which had great distinction and roundness.
We visited many of the vineyards and cellars in the district. A few of the great cellars in Beaune extend under the streets and under several other buildings as well as the one entered. It is an intriguing network of cellar space which houses fortunes in wines. I noticed casks of wine from the previous year's sale at the Hospice de Beaune, which were marked for purchasers in all quarters of the globe, including several for Señor Peron in Argentina.
Alsace
The outstanding incident of our trip from the Burgundy district to Alsace was, in addition to the magnificent scenery through the Vosges mountains, a perfect wine served to us en route. We stopped at the Feuillée Dorothée high in the Vosges near Plombières. The setting is breathtakingly beautiful, for one lunches on a terrace that literally hangs from the side of the mountain. The wine we had, which was served with that famous hot hors-d'oeuvre of that part of the world—quiche Lorraine—was a Traminer, Reserve Exceptionelle. It was one of the most Bowery, light, and enchanting wines of that district, where the lush quality of grape flavor is so prominent in all the wines. Alsatians are delightful, unpretentious wines which should be drunk when they are young and gay.
The following day we drove through the lovely country from Colmar to Riquewihr, which should be catalogued in your next French itinerary as a must. Riquewihr, a relic of seventeenth-century France, is built on a rather steep hill. The houses, the streets, the market, and the surrounding walls are sheer enchantment, and the general feeling one has in the town is one of utter and complete detachment from the world. Here we trekked through the streets and peered into dooryards and were given a tasting of some of the choicest of Alsatian wines. With it we had as palate-cleaner a towering Kougelhof, a coffeecake perfectly flavored and beautifully baked in its mold.
The wines we tasted were young, mostly 1947's and a few 1945's. Such charm and light poetry they have, these young Alsatians. The Traminer, the Riesling, and the Pinot Gris grapes produce them. It was an assortment of the finest wines from all the great houses in Alsace, including Willm, Dopff, Hugel, and several others.
At luncheon we tasted more wines of the district, after touring through their picturesque vineyards. There was an especially notable Grand Riesling Reserve 1945.
Champagne
A brief overnight stop in Strasbourg gave us a slight respite, and then on to the Champagne country. Our stay there was all too brief, but we covered some notable ground. On the Sunday of our final week we were the guests of the Comité Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne at a delightful luncheon in the beautiful home of Comte Bertrand de Vogüé. In this charming atmosphere and with a group of distinguished neighbors in the district, as well as André Simon from London and a minister from the French cabinet, it was a gay and interesting luncheon. We drank some delightful Champagnes: a 1943 Roederer and a 1923 Veuve Clicquot, which was a most distinguished wine and one of which the Comte de Vogüé may well be proud. The day was enhanced by a birthday visit to the gracious Madame Bollinger at Ay. She had told me that the Sunday of our visit would be her birthday, and, as far as we were concerned, it was one of the happiest celebrations in a long line of gaiety. We trouped through the winery, where the vendange was just being completed, to watch the press and note the care which this remarkable woman takes with her wines. Then we tasted the fresh press and the grapes. We continued across the road to Madame's home, where we toasted her in what is probably the greatest Champagne still in existence—the 1929 Bollinger. it is truly a sensation to drink this superb wine, and we felt honored that she had offered it to us for our mutual celebration.
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