The Auswine Forum

I'm going travelling to Europe soon and am in the process of sorting out some of the specifics of my trip. I'm currently planning the Paris-Switzerland leg. I'm hopefully doing a bit more extensive exploring of France with a friend later in the trip, but in the meantime I thought why not stop off in Dijon along the way?

Has anyone been to Dijon? Is there anywhere reasonably tourist-friendly in the city where I could go to sample some of the wines of Burgundy? A tasting room would be great, as would a good wine bar. Bear in mind that I won't have access to a car.

Get the train to Beaune (about 1 hour from memory). This place is the heart of Burgundy... you will not be disappointed. Plenty of opportunity to sample some great pinot.

The train from Dijon to Beaune is quite a lot less than an hour from memory - Dijon is essentially the northernmost point of Burgundy proper. It's worth a visit to Beaune for sure.

Some of the larger Domaines (Pere et Fils etc) do tastings from memory and there is a place which apparently conducts a full range of tastings across the region which we never went to but is supposed to be good. There is a fair bit of information out there on Beaune and wine tastings etc. It's worth just going there to soak up the atmosphere because whilst it's a busy working town, it's also unbelievably steeped in atmosphere (perhaps because of that) and there's tons of wine shops littered about the place with reasonably priced (compared to here) wines.

Another great idea is to hire some bikes and ride around out of Beaune - specifically down through the vineyards around Mersault, Pommard, Volnay and down to the Montrachets. We did this, armed with some cheese from Hess cheese shop in Beaune (brilliant) and had a ball.

Didn't think too much of Dijon to be honest although our stop there was relatively brief. Lots of beggars outside the train station which may have sullied my memories somewhat.

Good luck!

I agree with Wayno, to me Dijon seemed quite industrial, we only stayed one night and managed to have a very nice dinner and a tip top bottle of Tollot Aloxe Corton if I do recall, but I wouldn't bother staying there again as Beaune is where it's really at! The tourist centre in Beaune can point you in the direction of a minibus tour which was great to do (even though I don't normally like tours) because the patchwork nature of the multitude of vineyard sites really does need some explaining. He also took us to a couple of small tinshed type domaines where we tasted and bought some bottles (stretching memory for details here, it was 7 years ago). It was only a couple of hours also and we ended up going to the bus driver's restaurant that night, which was located in a beautiful underground cellar and were thoroughly spoiled by the guy and his family. There are some retail wine shops which also have regular tastings, but you really have to either rent bikes or a car and take at least one bottle and a picnic up into the hills and look down on the vineyards, it is a thoroughly great thing to do, I want to go there now!

Have a great trip,

lantana

Thanks guys, I'm convinced. I'll head directly to Beaune.