This past weekend, my friends and I spent two nights in France’s wine region of Beaune, France. Beaune is probably my new favorite place in France, it was so cute and there was a wine bar and wine shop in any direction you looked. We stayed in an apartment that looked out onto the cobblestone streets below, and I really felt like I was in Europe with our view (if it hasn’t sinked in before).

Friday January 28th, 2022

We arrived by train Friday night, and settled in with dinner at a local French restaurant called Le Bacchus. I ordered the suprême de volaille and it was the best chicken I’ve ever had. Normally, I’m usually hesitant about ordering chicken in restaurants because it normally comes out dry, but this chicken was cooked perfectly.

After dinner, I was still hungry since I only had chicken and veggies, and the others were craving sweets, so we stopped at a crêperie for dessert. I was surprised that the crêperie was open until 1am since there was nobody on the streets, but I guess we visited Beaune during their off season! I ordered the crêpe with strawberries and it was very satisfying. The server was so nice, because we told him it was Amelie’s birthday and he brought out her waffle with a candle and sang happy birthday!

Saturday January 29th, 2022

On Saturday, we visited a vineyard in a near by town from Beaune called Château de Meursault. One of our friends on the trip, Camila, is a sommelier so she had planned our whole weekend, including where we stayed and the vineyard we visited. She really has an eye for wine, as she picked the vineyard that happened to create Pinot Noir and has the best Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the world! I had no idea this was where we were visiting until our tour began!

Our visit was two hours long, with the first hour being the tour through the wine cellars and the second hour consisted of tasting the wines. Our tour was in French, so I only understood about 1/5 of what the tour guide said, but I still left with more information than I came with! Even though I didn’t understand all of it, I would rather the tour be in French so I can have as much exposure to the language as possible so in the end I can learn more.

On our tour, I thought it was just going to be my friends and I because as we walked 30 minutes from the train station to the vineyard, barely any cars had passed us. It seemed as though we were in a very desolate area of France! But then again, it was the “off-season” for the Burgundy wine region. However, an older couple had joined us. They were a great addition to our group because they asked lots of questions during the tour and were a lot of fun to talk to during the tasting!

During the tasting, we tasted 9 wines. Three were white and six were red. I normally prefer white wine, but I really enjoyed the second red wine we tasted, which was the Beaune Fêves Premier Cru 2016. I thought it was so interesting because three of the red wines we tasted were of the same type of wine, but since they were grown in different areas of Meursault with different soils, they all had different tastes and experiences!

I felt like our tour was of very good value for the price we payed. For only 20 euros, we toured the wine cellars of Château de Meursault, tasted nine wines, and even got to keep our wine glass! Overall, I had so much fun on the wine tour and learned a lot about wine. I’m really happy I went on this trip because one of the main things on my bucket list for studying abroad in France was to visit a vineyard and go on a tour! I hope I can visit another winery once it gets warmer in France!

Other moments from my trip