After our teacher mentioned the event “caves ouvertes” in Auxey-Duresses, we decided to go have a look. As we pictured a standard wine fair we were definitely in for a surprise – we bought our glasses , which allowed us to walk from cellar to cellar to try wine. Not only did this allow us to experience the different cellars, we also got to walk around the quaint town.



We mostly followed the Route des Grands Crus when driving to Auxey-Duresses, enjoying the stunning scenery on the way. Taking off from the main road, we were quickly driving in the middle of the vineyards. We stopped at a crossroads so that I could go out and take photos. Every way I turned there was something new and interesting to photograph! In the end I think my favourite motif was the deep blue grapes still left on the vines against the fiery yellow, orange and red of the leaves.



As soon as we got to Auxey-Duresses and found a parking spot it started raining so we sought refuge in the nearest cellar. After buying our glass a friendly wine grower introduced us to his wines. While most of the wines were good they were quite acidic – a trait we ended up finding in a lot of the wines we tried that day. We braved the rain and walked to the next cellar to try their variety of wine. What I found interesting was comparing the wines from different cellars as they were all from the same grape variety and all from the same area.



We visited some very picturesque cellars, where we ended up having mini photo-shoots. I find the rows of barrels very fascinating, and love photographing them. One cellar had long rows of barrels ending up at a small stage, another had old dusty bottles. One cellar had a barrel with see through panels so we would see the wine maturing. The coolest one was a barrel with red wine where bubbles were coming up round the cork!



We drove to Puligny-Montrachet for a delicious lunch. On the way we passed a farmer using a special tractor to prune his vines – we had just learnt about this in class. Luckily there was no one else on the road, so we could stop for photos. Due to our hunger, and the bad weather, we did not explore much of Puligny-Montrachet, but it looked very quaint.



We drove back to Auxey-Duresses and tasted some more wines! That day we did a lot of tasting – and not so much drinking – so we decided to purchase some wine to bring back to Dijon. We had taken notes at each stop – so we consulted them and went back to our favourite cellars to buy some wine. Afterwards, we decided to walk around the vineyards to take some more photos. As we walked past some wines we could see that the grower had prepared to remove some – he had even made holes for the new plants to be planted. The more I learn in class about wine growing, the more interesting I find the visits to the vineyards seeing how everything is done.



Driving back, we decided to take the scenic route, but at one point we took a wrong turn. The result was a drive through a steep, rocky dirt road in the middle of nowhere. A little scary in a small car without 4-wheel drive, but we made it. There were even some nice photo opportunities along the way.



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