Burgundy

Burgundy is the great wine region closest to western Switzerland: the Côte d’Or lies about two and a half hours by road from Geneva. It is visited for its vineyards and cellars, its Cistercian and ducal heritage and its serious tables, and it suits a long weekend spent between the villages of the Côte, the wine town of Beaune and a dining room in the evening.

The heart of Burgundy is the Côte d’Or, a narrow escarpment that runs south from Dijon past Beaune. Its northern half, the Côte de Nuits, gives the great reds of Gevrey-Chambertin, Vougeot and Vosne-Romanée; its southern half, the Côte de Beaune, adds the whites of Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. Here wine is defined by the climat, the individual named plot, and the Climats of the Burgundy vineyards have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2015.

Beaune is the region’s wine town, ringed by ramparts and built over cellars; at its centre stand the Hospices de Beaune, founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to the Duke of Burgundy, beneath their roofs of glazed, coloured tiles. Dijon, the old ducal capital, keeps the Palace of the Dukes and, since 2022, the Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie et du Vin. The monks of nearby Cîteaux walled the Clos de Vougeot in the Middle Ages; Chablis lies to the north-west, the Mâconnais to the south.

Spring and early summer are green and quiet on the Côte, with long evenings for walking or cycling the paths between the villages. The harvest usually falls in September, when the domaines are fully occupied and cellar visits are harder to arrange; October follows with the vines turning gold and red along the slope.

The Hospices de Beaune hold their charity wine auction on the third Sunday of November, the centre of a long weekend of tastings in the town, and in late January the Saint-Vincent Tournante, the winegrowers’ festival, moves to a different village each year. Winter is otherwise the quietest season and the time for the great dining rooms, although some domaines and smaller houses close for part of it.

Burgundy’s finest stays are country houses built around celebrated kitchens rather than large hotels. Maison Lameloise in Chagny, at the southern end of the Côte de Beaune, is a former coaching inn with sixteen rooms and suites and a dining room that holds three Michelin stars. Hostellerie de Levernois, about five kilometres from the centre of Beaune, stands in its own park on the Bouzaize, with a Michelin-starred restaurant, La Table de Levernois, and an easy drive to the villages of the Côte.

LVXE books both through Relais & Châteaux Preferred Partner — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges the programme attaches to the stay. For other houses in the region, LVXE advises on the stay and arranges it directly with the hotel. Rooms are few in both houses, and the weekend of the Hospices auction in November is reserved many months ahead.