In the last instalment of our summer series of highlights from The World of Fine Wine’s extensive archive of travel writing from the world’s wine regions, Raymond Blake reflects on his experience of buying a house in Burgundy and making a home in a favorite holiday destination.
This article was first published in WFW67 in 2020.
The high stone wall, fortress-thick and roofed with red tiles, gave no promise of what lay beyond. Nor did the wooden garage door, wizened with age, or the metal pedestrian gate, drab green and dribbled with rust. This squealed open at a heave from the estate agent who, with a knowing smile, beckoned us enter first. We smiled, too, when we saw the garden beyond, dominated by a massive cherry in full, late-April blossom, decked with snowy puffballs of flower. We had still to see the house, but in truth we were sold.
Had we been played? Yes, but only in the most pleasant fashion, and we cared little that we had been brought in through what was technically the back entrance—though what constitutes the front and back of the house is a debate that has gone round in circles ever since, given that it can be entered from each of two parallel streets.
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We crossed the garden while delighting in its expanse and entered the house, a move that brought us back to earth and out of our reverie. Where, outdoors, the colors boasted a dazzling patina thanks to the bright sun, indoors it looked as if a dun wash had been applied to every object and surface. Everything had a dispiriting brown look, but only a little effort was needed to see beyond it, to note that, though careworn, the house was sound. The outdated, almost antique, kitchen could be replaced, while the smallest bedroom could be sacrificed to create an en-suite and a guest bathroom. The rest was largely a cosmetic redecoration job, and anything after that was elective, not essential.
Purposeful reconnaissance
Our stepping into that secret garden on a sunny April day was the beginning of the end of a long search that stretched intermittently back over the previous 18 months. Two summer holidays were spent in Burgundy, staying in Morey-St-Denis, wining and dining with clear purpose, while house hunting in an idle fashion—a process that usually involved gazing dreamily at grand properties that were way beyond our budget and indulging in when-we-win-the-lottery discussions about how we would put our stamp on them. This led nowhere, other than to copper-fasten our desire to own a house in the region, and this was an itch that could only be scratched by actually buying one—visiting for holidays merely aggravated the irritation.
Our efforts needed to be invested with more rigor, and to that end a dedicated week was set aside for purposeful reconnaissance. A host of appointments filled the diary, and we set off in good cheer. But it was a dispiriting week as we crisscrossed the Côte d’Or, doggedly fulfilling appointments even though a quick glance was enough to rule out a clutch of the houses we viewed. In pre-Google Maps days, much time was spent tracing fingernails along billowing large-scale maps, planning routes, getting lost, backtracking, and somehow, mercifully, never succumbing to the clichéd, husband-and-wife volcanic arguments about who is the better navigator.
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Entreaties from well-meaning friends and contacts—to the effect of, if we looked a few miles to the east or west of the Côte we would find more space for less money—fell on deaf ears. As I explained repeatedly, we were not going the 900 or so miles (1,500km) from Dublin to miss our target by a few miles to the left or right. If we were going to buy a house in Burgundy, it was going to be in wine Burgundy, specifically the Côte d’Or. Adjacent to or contiguous with would not cut it. If Beaune was the bull’s-eye of the world’s most storied wine region, we were determined to be within hailing distance of it: Slap bang in the vineyards that ran to the north and south would do nicely. Vines running metaphorically to our doorstep was top of our “must have” list.
With the reconnaissance week not running to script, spirits drooped, and it was in desultory mood that we approached the final appointment, equanimity shredded by being thrown well off course by roadworks and thus arriving late. The stickler for punctuality within me raged, but the friendly estate agent batted away my explanations and apologies with a gracious wave. Moments later, the cherry tree lifted the spirits and ushered away the remnants of my anger.
Once indoors, we were met by a bird-like lady of advanced years, trim and reserved, and looking bemused that a couple from Ireland was interested in buying the house she had lived in for decades. My hobnail French didn’t clarify anything. After some polite exchanges through the agent, we asked about the neighbors. A stabbing glance to the right tightened her gentle features, crossed the language barrier, and told us all we needed to know while, with a leftward turn of her head, the piercing eyes and pursed lips softened into an expansive smile. Here, she told us, lived a true gentleman, summed up in paraphrase: He looks out for me, and if he notices that I haven’t opened my shutters by a certain hour, he will call in to check that all is well. That was all we needed to know, and her assessments proved, on the one hand, distressingly accurate and, on the other, joyously so.
Some months later, with all the legal and fiscal niceties complete, we finally took possession of the keys and had barely entered the house when a sharp rap on the door signaled the arrival of narky neighbor. He barged in and launched into a diatribe about some notional transgression on our part. We barely understood a word, but we got the message: It was a territory-marking exercise, and my offer of a glass of Irish whiskey went unanswered. Local winemakers in whom we confided were appalled that we should be greeted in such a way but assured us his ire was directed in a village-wide sweep, thereby assuaging our fears that he regarded us as Johnny Foreigner invaders of his village. Thereafter, his stone-in-
shoe irritation was more than compensated for the by the extraordinary kindness, generosity, and hospitality of his polar opposite on the other side. And we were too preoccupied with pressing chores to worry too much about it.
A year-round perspective
If you are considering the purchase of a house in Burgundy and you have any DIY skills, hone them to perfection, because any work you can initiate and complete yourself will be a huge bonus. I am handy enough about the house, able to manage minor chores and, in this case, the massive task of redecoration. To push back the gloom of decades, 60 liters of blanc cassé paint were bought, but first the careworn hessian wall covering had to be removed, a task of mindless tedium, for it was fixed to the wall by thousands of staples. There was no time to tarry—a couple dozen guests were expected in a week’s time to celebrate our national holiday, St Patrick’s Day. With that thought yapping at my heels, I persisted and persisted, then hurled on the paint fast and thick.
The celebration was a splendid success, bolstered by smoked salmon and brown bread flown from Ireland and buoyed by Champagne from France—an entente cordiale signaled by the crossed tricolors on the mantelpiece. We chose Champagne, reasoning that trying to select a Burgundy that would satisfy all palates while offending none would be too great a challenge. The party gained us an immediate “in,” as well as all sorts of local knowledge and advice, small tips, and suggestions, all of which helped immeasurably to smooth the transition from simply owning a house in the region to having a home there.
Further work was now required, with the kitchen and bathroom vying for “most urgent” status. We pushed ahead, discovering again and again, like many before us, that any work that has to be contracted out will, as sure as night follows day, drag on interminably. Renovations will be done at their pace not yours; the carrot or stick that can change this has yet to be discovered. The only consolation is that when it is finally finished, the workmanship will be of a high standard, properly completed with no loose-end niggles to torment you further. Before that bright day, however, there will be fraught discussions and tattered nerves. In our case, the soothing properties of fine Burgundy were tested almost to breaking point.
One thing we overlooked was air-conditioning. It wasn’t necessary, we thought—the odd hot day could be endured. But two heatwaves in summer 2019, with the temperature peaking at a mind-bending 106°F (41°C), sent us scurrying to buy a portable unit for the bedroom. It does what it says on the tin, but at the price of a tractor-like rattle and hum as it sucks in the stifling air and pumps out a deliciously cool replacement.
We got our choice of village right, however. Santenay bustles by comparison with next door Chassagne-Montrachet. In purely wine terms, the latter sits in the pantheon of the greats, celebrated wherever wine is drunk; the former is still shaking off the pejorative “worthy but improving” tag, yet there is no doubt which is the better place to live. And at night, as with rural villages across France, the place seems to curl in on itself, and comforting silence settles, broken only by the plangent tolling of the church bells.
It is stating the obvious, but having a house in Burgundy allows for visiting on a whim at any time of year, the benefit of which only manifests itself when you do. You get behind the overromanticized picture of the Côte d’Or as a blessed bucolic land, an Arcadia of delight where winemaking is a joy, not a year-round grind in search of excellence. As a wine writer, it gives me an intangible perspective, adding depth to an otherwise two-dimensional picture. I’ve got behind the facade, as it were, by way of casual exchanges in the market or the boulangerie, or chance meetings while walking the vineyards, picking up valued nuggets of information. The accumulation of knowledge thus gained develops gradually into insight and understanding. Depth and precision are added to a complex canvas, each new pixel of experience another small brushstroke in the overall picture.
Only by being there in late spring, for example, when frost is threatening, can you appreciate the anxiety that pervades, especially among the smallholders who, in the worst scenario, stand to lose a year’s crop, and hence the year’s income, which is needed to repay bank loans, keep up with school fees, and put fuel in the car and bread on the table. There’s a palpable tension until the danger of frost subsides and the worry beads can be put away until summer hail threatens.
When you have time to waste time, no longer behaving like a visitor, you can pause for reflection and indulge in serendipitous exploration, mooching about, chasing up dead ends, shooting the breeze in wine shops, bumping into vignerons, who are more forthcoming on an accidental meeting than when hosting a visitor by appointment. Year-round experience of the region renders the skewed impression derived from high-season visits in sharper, more valid focus. The picture-postcard scenes of high summer deliver a single message, falsely saccharine. Later in the year, without the illumination and warmth of a summer sun, nuance and shade are more readily perceived—such as when, in January’s bitter cold, the workers are spotted tending to the vineyards, day in, day out, warmed only by the burning vine cuttings. The smoke dawdles upward and slithers into the low-lying cloud that sits like a blanket on the hills, deadening the hunters’ gunshots and bestowing a marvelous calm. The trees are leafless and completely see-through except for opaque knots of mistletoe. The work proceeds. Ceaseless toil is the secret to producing the best wines.
The two golden rules
I like to quip that there are two golden rules for buying a house in Burgundy—one legal, one gustatory. Abide by them, and a smug sense of satisfaction will be yours for as long as you remain there.
Rule number one: Get yourself a good solicitor, trustworthy and competent and fully conversant with French law and the myriad complexities of property transactions there. If he suggests pause, then pause; do not let impatience, fueled by a desire to crack on in acquiring your Gallic idyll, override prudence. We were immensely fortunate in this regard, his well-informed and dexterous hand guiding us through the transactional maze-cum-minefield.
Rule number two: Buy within walking distance of a good boulangerie, which is not as easy as might be believed. Not all villages are thus endowed. I cannot exaggerate the quotidian joy of the stroll there, catching the first wafts of baking on the air while still 100 meters away, agonizing over what treats to buy, and then marching back home like a triumphant general—with the warm baguette clutched to your chest on a bitter winter’s day. Where once I joked about this, now I say it in all seriousness. It doesn’t do to be flippant about such daily essentials.
“Is the house finished yet?” asks one interlocutor with metronome regularity. “We’re 90 percent there,” is my stock reply. In truth, it never will be complete, just as my knowledge of Burgundy will never be. I thought I knew it pretty well until we bought the house. Now, 14 years later and with a sum of knowledge vastly increased, I realize I never will—and that is what keeps drawing me back. That is the real joy.
