Beaune, France

In September of 1999, my ex-husband and I traveled to Beaune, France and stayed for a day or two. “Beaune is the wine capital of Burgundy in the Côte d’Or department in eastern France. It is located between Lyon and Dijon. Beaune is one of the key wine centers in France, and the center of Burgundy wine production and business. The annual wine auction of the Hospices de Beaune or the Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune is the primary wine auction in France. (Wikipedia: Beaune)

Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune

One of the most memorable aspects of Beaune for me were the wine caves under the city streets. There was one wine producer that allowed people to pay admission to go underground and walk through the extensive caves and pour your own wine from bottles scattered throughout the caves. There were perhaps 20 barrels set up throughout the caves, with candles for lighting and an open bottle for you to sample. The caves were dark and there were real bottles of wine stored in some of the dusty, dark, cobweb-filled storage chambers. The self-guided tour took about an hour and at the end you walked up a flight of stone steps and entered the store where you could buy wine or have it shipped to your home. They shipped wine all over the world.

Me at the entrance to the wine caves, Beaune, September 1999

The rest of the town was charming and made me wish that we could have spent days sitting at cafes and watching daily life play out. I remember going into the town Information Center for tourists and falling in love with a poster showing all the different kinds of French cheeses. We hadn’t allocated enough time to do a winery tour. We also only took trains and buses or rode with friends – we never drove ourselves in our visits to the UK and Europe – so that limited our ability to get outside of any town we visited.

Carousel, Beaune, September 1999

Because we didn’t allow ourselves very much time on this visit, we came back in December of 2001. As was our wont, we first landed in London and spent some time with our friends in Redhill, Surrey outside of London. We also visited Cambridge for a day or two before heading off to France.

Me in Cambridge, December 2001

We made our way from England to Beaune and stayed in a small, boutique hotel for several nights before we headed off to spend Christmas with our friends’ family in Angers. It was a bitterly cold December, with arctic air coming down into the UK and Europe. Nevertheless, the visit to Beaune was magical. The town was decorated for the holidays, the pace was slow, everything was quiet.

Salon de thé, Beaune, December 2001

Me in the center of Beaune, December 2001

Center of town, Beaune, December 2001

We signed up for a tour of local vineyards which was wonderful, in spite of it being winter and bitterly cold. We were driven in a small van around the countryside and visited some small local producers. This was where I first learned that the same parcel of land could produce very different quality of wine in different rows, even when planted with the same varietal. Families or wineries would own a row or two of vines and the care they took of the vines and the way they harvested could produce markedly different wines. Add in the skills of the winemaker and you had to be careful what you bought. Locals knew all the subtle signs but most outsiders would not know. It makes sense when you learn about it but most people would look at a hillside of vines and just expect that the product would be either consistently good or consistently mediocre.

Vineyard outside of Beaune, December 2001

Vineyard outside of Beaune, December 2001

I have not been back to Beaune since that trip in December 2001. Today, on a bitterly cold day here in Saskatchewan, I remember the way that town felt and I can almost imagine walking through the quiet streets, all bundled up, and stopping for a dinner and a bottle of local wine at one of the small restaurants still open for the locals.

Joie de vivre

One of the joys of my life is wine and how it has enhanced time with friends, provided me opportunities to experience new places, and just sit quietly and reflect. I didn’t really drink wine until I was almost 40 and I was introduced to it by the man I was seeing at the time. He encouraged me to try wine with dinner and I remember going out to dinner with friends in Bloomington, Indiana and trying out merlot. That was the start of my voyage of wine discovery.

Later, moving to Los Angeles, my ex and I started going every Friday night to a large liquor store that would bring in wine distributors from around the world for tastings. For a few dollars, we would have access to the featured wines for tasting and a buffet supper. That was the start of my real wine education and also where we first hooked up with friends with whom we hung out every week and with whom we took occasional weekend wine-tasting trips in California. There were wine-tasting trips to Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Sonoma, and more.

Wine tasting with LA friends at Foxen Winery in Santa Maria, CA around 1997 or 1998

Wine tasting weekend with friends along the Central Coast of California
around 1997 or 1998

Across the street from the Fess Parker Winery around 1998, visiting with friends. I remember this trip and the smell of the vineyards and the countryside as we drove through the Central Coast of California.

Fess Parker Winery in Los Olivos, California. The movie _Sideways_ used the Fess Parker tasting room for the spot where Paul Giamatti lost it and drank from the spit bucket because he couldn’t wait for more wine to be poured so he could drown his sorrows.  Fess Parker Winery and Vineyard, 6200 Foxen Canyon Road, Los Olivos.

Me coming out of the Benziger Winery in Sonoma County, California in 2008 where Wolfgang and I met up with friends from Eugene for the Thanksgiving weekend wine tasting. This was one of my favorites and we stopped there first. I bought two cases and then we had to figure out how to get them back into Canada. When I declared them at the border, and should have had to pay significant import duty on the two cases, the Customs agent just looked at me and said, “Merry Christmas!”

When I moved from Los Angeles to Eugene, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley, I was in wine heaven. The Willamette Valley is home to some great pinot gris and pinot noir wine producers. There were many wonderful wineries within 30 minutes of Eugene and many more within 60 or 90 minutes. We spent many wonderful weekends touring around the various wineries, sometimes with friends and sometimes on our own. I also did a couple of trips with Eugene friends down to Sonoma on Thanksgiving weekend when all the wineries laid on special tastings and lots of hors d’oeuvres.

Me during wine tasting in Sonoma County, California in 2008.

Wine tasting friends at Sundance Wine Cellars in Eugene. We used to meet up there for the weekly Friday evening and Saturday afternoon tastings. Our group then started buying expensive bottles of wines from around the world and having them poured for us by the wonderful people running the shop. We all got to try some amazing wines. We also got together fairly often for dinners and blind tastings at each other’s homes. Those were great times.

Me at King Estate Winery outside Eugene, Oregon. King Estate is one of the larger producers in Oregon and they often win awards for their pinot gris. It is definitely worth a visit because they have a beautiful tasting room and spectacular views from their outside terrace, as well as a restaurant. There are many other great wines in Oregon also worthy of a visit.

Wine tasting at a winery outside of Eugene, Oregon

Views of vines in the Willamette Valley. One of the things I like about wine tasting is the great scenery.

From a wine tasting trip outside of Portland, Oregon in 2017. I had a conference in Portland and Eugene friends drove up and spent two nights so we could go out on a wine tasting tour together. This was at Tresori Vineyards. I love visiting winery tasting rooms. They are usually beautifully appointed spaces filled with artwork, local crafts and food items. They make me smile inside.

One of the Willamette Valley wineries. They often have lovely grounds that overlook the vineyards and provide quiet places to enjoy the wine and take in the scenery. My idea of heaven.

Vineyards at a Willamette Valley winery.

Wine tasting with friends outside Portland, Oregon.

I have also had many wonderful opportunities to visit vineyards or taste great wines in cooperatives or restaurants/cafes in France, Spain, and Italy.

Me checking out the view of the Mediterranean and drinking a regional wine in Antibes, France.

Me at an underground tasting cooperative in Beaune, France. I visited these caves on two separate trips. To enter, you go down underground and walk through the caves and taste wine from open bottles sitting on top of wooden wine barrels. Candles sit on top of the barrels. You pay an entry fee and then proceed at your own pace and drink as much wine as you want. You come up into their shop where you can buy bottles or cases of wine or have it shipped to you. It must be a good sales strategy as you come up pretty well soused.

Nuits-St-Georges tasting room, France. Another of the world’s great wine regions that I visited.

Bordeaux, France. One of the great wine tasting regions in the world that I was lucky enough to visit.

Domaine Charles Joguet in Chinon, France. The winery was closed the day we drove up to it but it was still magical.

Wine tasting in Angers, France with a dear friend.

Tasting room in St. Emilion, France. St. Emilion produces some of the great wine known the world over.

Vineyards outside of St. Emilion, France on one of my visits there.

Cooperative tasting room in San Remo, Italy. I took the train into Italy one day for lunch and found this open tasting room as I was walking back to the train station to go back to Antibes, France. The man running the tasting room was getting ready to close for the day so he kept pouring us wine rather than throw it out. I don’t know how we found our way back to the train station!

Drinking wine overlooking the Mediterranean in Nerja, Spain.

Dinner out with colleagues, which included great Spanish wine, in Toledo, Spain

Wine is best enjoyed in the company of dear friends. Whenever possible, I have combined business trips with pleasure and joined friends to visit wineries or tasting rooms, wherever I happen to be. If I’m alone, I often will try a local wine

Tasting room in Santa Monica, California in the company of good friends.

Me enjoying the view and some wine in Ojai, California.

Wine tasting with a friend when we were taking a break from a conference in Monterey, California.

Self-service wine tasting in Santa Monica, California.

Enjoying a nice wine at a restaurant in Santa Monica, California

Sonoma County, Thanksgiving weekend trip with friends, 2008

Vino vole. In my travels when I was working, I chanced upon a wine tasting chain in several airports. I always tried to get to the airport early enough when I was in one of those cities so I could enjoy a flight of wines with a light lunch or a snack. Such a wonderful indulgence!

I haven’t experienced a lot of Italian wine. This was one that I picked up at a tasting at Total Wine in Boca Raton and drank one weekend on my own during the early days of the pandemic. It was outstanding.

Another excellent Oregon pinot noir.

One of the great Oregon wineries with excellent pinot noir. When I lived in Oregon, I learned that pinot noir goes great with salmon.

Prosecco or another sparking wine was my favorite go-to wine on hot days in Florida. I would have prosecco and Wolfgang would have a beer and we would enjoy sitting and looking at the Gulf of Mexico or the intracoastal waterways.

Clearwater, Florida along the intercoastal waterway, I had just finished a glass of cold, white wine.

Enjoying a glass of wine as our cruise ship was preparing to leave Tampa
on the way to Cozumel.

Sharing wine with other people is one of the joys of my life. I started doing this when I was at UCLA at my home, at staff events at work, and sometimes with a few people on Friday afternoons in my office or at a campus pub or a local restaurant. I did this at every job (except Regina) up through my retirement from Florida Atlantic University. I had some great times with many people, enjoying some fine wines and cheese and other good food to celebrate a holiday, a special event, or just the end of a work week.

In my professional life as a Dean of Libraries, I enjoyed having events that introduced people to the joys of wine tasting. This was an event for new graduate students at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

In my time as Dean at St. Petersburg, I threw staff annual holiday parties in December and at other times and always brought in wine for staff to enjoy.

I am grateful that someone introduced me to wine and its pleasures. It has enhanced so many of my life’s moments. Although I have slowed down quite a bit with my wine drinking, I still savor the taste and the entire experience.