One visit and you’ll know there are countless reasons to go to this east-central area of France. To help us narrow it down a little bit, though, writer Irvina Lew focuses our attention on a wide-ranging list of reasons to love Burgundy, France.

Family-owned winery, Olivier LeFlaive

“Why Burgundy?” friends ask.

“Burgundian whites, gastronomy, history and pastoral beauty,” I note about attributes discovered during a riverboat voyage from Dijon to Lyon, road trips from Paris to Nice, three barge canal cruises and a journalists’ tour through the Burgundy Office of Tourism (in 2008). After returning for my eighth – and first solo – visit, during September’s grape harvest, I can add wine country spas as reasons to revisit. Here are my choices for the answer of “Why Burgundy?”

Hospices de Beaune/Hotel DIeu (credit: Alain Doire/Bourgogne-Franche Compte Tourisme)

10 Reasons to Love Burgundy, France

Dijon

Via TGV, Rail Europe’s high speed train, Dijon, the capital of the region, is 95 minutes from Paris. There’s stunning architecture in its historic district at the Palais des Ducs, the Musée des Beaux Arts, and the Musée de la vie Bourguignonne. A new tramway provides efficient local transportation; car rental agencies provide access to wine routes in the Cote d’Or. So do wine tours, including Authentica Tours, which the Burgundy Office of Tourism arranged for me. We visited wineries, saw the legendary Romanée Conti vineyard and lunched on our own in Beaune. (I had a tranche (slice) of foie gras at Ecrit’ Vin.)

Beaune

Beaune, the capital of the Burgundy wine trade, is a charming walkable city, where the Hospices de Beaune, a former hospital, is decorated with a multi-colored, geometric-patterned, glazed-tile roof. There’s a wonderful market, wine-cellars and shops selling regional specialties, including blackcurrant liquor, anise-flavored Flavigny candies and honey spice cake.

Cuisine   

Farm fresh and fulfilling Burgundian foods include familiar favorites: coq au vin (chicken in wine), boeuf bourguignon (beef in wine) and foie gras (goose liver), plus escargots (snails), cuisses de grenouilles (frogs legs) and oeufs en meurette (poached eggs in a red wine sauce). Appetizer specialties feature the flaky finger food, Gougères, crispy gruyère-cheese-filled paté à choux, (puff pastry). Cassis (tiny, dark blackcurrants), Charolais beef—the pure white cattle—and Bresse chicken are also popular and mustard is an essential ingredient. In Beaune, La Moutarderie Fallot, a family-owned-business since 1840, offers a factory tour and a boutique stocked with enhanced mustards: honey and balsamic vinegar, gingerbread, cassis, basil and tarragon. By 2019, this, the only private, non-industrial mustard producer, will incorporate seeds grown in the region in all their mustards.

La Moutarderie yellow truck.

Wine Routes

Scenic country roads such as, D122, the Route des Grands Crus, and D974, traverse The Cote d’Or. Here, local colors reflect wine estates where grape-hued burgundy, vine-green and sunlight-gold, repeat the tints on the historic roof tiles. And, white, rectangular, red-rimmed road signs read like a fine carte de vins (wine list): Aloxe Corton, Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits-Saint-Georges. A red slash through the name indicates the exit from a tiny village with stone buildings, narrow paths and geranium-filled planters.

Road signs directions for the Wine Route.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Among the 1247 parcelles (plots) listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites (2015), many are family-owned for multiple generations. One, the Château du Clos de Vougeot, is where Cistercian monks produced wines from grapes grown in their 12^th century walled vineyard and where the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin have their headquarters.

Picnic at Chateau du Clos de Vougeot credit Alain Doire-Bourgogne-Franche Compte Tourisme

Family-owned winery – Olivier Leflaive

Visiting a family-estate, such as Olivier Leflaive  is an inimitable opportunity for tourists. Here, guests can visit, tour the cave, do tastings, dine and stay (even, or especially, during the harvest) in the charming, four-star, 13-room Hotel Olivier Leflaive. The hotel is within a restored 17^th century building in Puligny-Montrachet, population 383. Owner Olivier Leflaive and his brother and partner, Patrick, descend from a 16^th century winemaking family. In this enterprise, he is both vigneron (winemaker) and domaine owner – who grows grapes on 21-hectares of vines (about 50-acres) – and also produces wine from his neighbors’ vineyards, including the family-owned vines in Montrachet. My timbered-ceiling room had a copy of Montrachet, by Simon Foftus, who wrote: “For more than 200 years, wine lovers have claimed that Montrachet/Puligny Montrachet produces ‘the greatest dry white wine in the world.’”

The author with Olivier Leflaive at Maison Leflaive, Puligny Montrachet.

 Historic winery – Chateau de Pommard

During an open-to-the-public Vendange (harvest) experience, I met the American owners, Michael and Julie Baum, who bought the historic  Chateau de Pommard property in November, 2014. They offer an appealing range of guest experiences, including a Food and Wine Pairing workshop and a new WSET wine school (Wine and Spirit Education Trust). Emmanuel Sainson, the chief of viticulture walked us through their walled Clos Marey-Monge vineyards, described the terroir (the unique qualities of the soil), their biodynamic practices and signature winemaking techniques at their 18^th Century cellars (and let me pick some grapes!). Later, Michael grilled the fish for our lunch, which he served under a tent in the courtyard.

The author with Michael Baum, owner Chateau de Pommard.

Small Luxury Hotel Spa – Le Cep

In Beaune, I returned to Le Cep, the five-star retreat owned by Jean-Claude Bernard, who greets guests as if they are in his own home and who personally chooses the objets that decorate each of the rooms. The Small Luxury Hotel affiliate has 64 rooms of which 32 are suites; some are located in a series of historic mansions that connect to a 16^th century courtyard, from which there’s an entry to its own Tasting Cellar Saint-Félix, where Sebastien, the sommelier, reigns. At the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant, Loiseau des Vignes – operated by the Groupe Bernard Loiseau – I sampled regional specialitées including quenelles (dumplings) with pike/perch in pink crémant (the local sparkling wine) and a Flavigny anise ice cream. The hotel’s Spa Marie de Bourgogne offers 15 experiences including an aqua-bike, hamman, treatment cabines, a lounge illuminated by stained glass windows and a wine-barrel-shaped sauna with a private outdoor terrace. 

Le Cep, barrel bath sauna-credit Hotel Le Cep

Hotel Spa: La Cueillette

The four-star, 19-room, Hotel Spa La Cueillette, is located within the impressive looking 19^th century Chateaux de Citeaux, refurbished in 2012 in charming Meursault (just a short taxi trip from Beaune, Chateau de Pommard or Olivier Leflaive). There’s even an imposing staircase from the entry up to the reception desk, which is adjacent to the ornate Napoleon III dining room. The ground floor spa includes an inviting indoor swimming pool with a lovely garden view and the Spa de Fruitithérapie (Fruititherapy), where spa treatments incorporate cassis and wine seed ingredients.

Tourist Hotel Spa: Relais Bernard Loiseau

Relais Bernard Loiseau is a famed, five-star, 32-room country inn, where the illustrious chef Bernard Loiseau, earned his third Michelin star, in 1991 and which he kept until his death in 2003. His widow, Dominique Loiseau, heads Le Groupe Bernard Loiseau, and warmly welcomes guests as aubergiste (innkeeper). Two-star Michelin Executive Chef Patrick Bertron, serves his own creations and traditional le style Loiseau dishes, including jambonettes of frog’s legs in a garlicky parsley jus. In 2017, the Relais & Chateaux affiliate added a new, wood-clad, four-story, 16,000-square foot spa, Villa Loiseau des Sens, with a spa restaurant entirely dedicated to Santé-plaisir cuisine, (Healthy-pleasure cooking). Along with a new indoor pool and hydrotherapy playground (with aqua bikes, showers, jets), a Moroccan hammam (a steam room), an ice fountain, a multi-jetted shower and a windowed sauna with a view of the interior garden, there’s a spa suite on the top floor outfitted with a fireplace, whirlpool tub, a huge bed and two treatment cabins. Signature treatments, “The Secrets de Cassis® by Dominique Loiseau,” incorporate Cassis, which has exceptional aromatic and nutritional qualities as a vitamin rich antioxidant. By car, the Saulieu getaway, is located 2.5 hours from Paris or about an hour from either Dijon or Beaune.

No matter where you go in Burgundy, wonderful things await. Hopefully this list gets your planning started with multi-sensory ways to enjoy it all.  — Story and photos, except where noted, by Irvina Lew.

Villa Loiseau des Sens, exterior. Photo credit: Franck Juery.

Hungry for more? Irvina also takes us through the champagne region of France, to get to know the authentic, historical and modern scene there. And, writer Rich Grant guides us through the treasures of Normandy, France.