Grape Wine Journey

We found the restaurant Le Pre aux Clercs in the Place de la Liberation in Dijon from the French restaurant guide, Gault Millau. We didn’t exactly pay much attention to what the food was, nor the significance of the venue, we had simply picked it according to the rating from the book.

The restaurant was empty when we arrived at 7:20pm for our 7:30pm reservation. The woman, obviously the proprietor simply said, “oui, tout a fait, a tout a l’heure,” basically telling us to come back later. However, our persistent pleas to have a drink beforehand resulted in a nice table on the terrace overlooking the plaza.

This inadvertently gave us some time to actually read the Gault Millau description of the restaurant. We had a bit of a chuckle when we found out that this particular venue is a magnet for Japanese tourists. The description referred to Le Pre as where Japanese tourists go to live out their Burgundian fantasies, with typical dishes like “Oeuf Meurettes’ (poached egg in red wine) and “L’escargots” (snails), all in the midst of one of the most iconic plazas in the region.

We thought the description wasn’t too far off the mark, except we didn’t see a single Japanese tourist. We got the point though as we looked out on the grand plaza with carefree kids playing amongst the sprouting fountains, the crowds of locals enjoying their early evening aperitifs, all overlooked by the stoic, yet grand Palais de Justice.

We started with a Meursault 1re Cru to whet our appetite. We thought that would be enough since we had intended to have a light meal. Obviously we were wrong. By the time we had finished our starters of Oeuf Cocotte – another baked egg dish, and a salade with pigeon and summer vegetables, we were on the last glass of Meursault. So we asked to see the wine list again.

That’s when we discovered the second Japanese connection with Le Pre. On the Carte du Vin was a 1994 Domaine B. Serveau et fils Chambolle Musigny “Les Amoureuses”, one of the legendary terroirs described by the viniculture manga, God’s Drop.

Despite the fact that it was way over our budget, we just had to order it anyway.

The sommelier warned us that due to the age of the wine, there will be less fruit and more earth and dried fruits, which is more or less how the wine turned out. The colour was like ox blood, deep chocolate, almost like truffles. There was still a hint of flowers at the beginning, but that soon expanded into a deep forest of mushrooms, eventually ending in a bouquet of earth and wood.

It was definitely not the young love in the fresh flowery garden scene that was conjured up by the main character of the comic series when he tasted his bottle from Les Amoureuses. Sure, there was certainly a wisp of the elation from the first encounter, but that changes rather quickly into a candle-lit dinner, a picnic in autumn, and embers in a fireplace.

The wine we had was definitely a bit older than the wine in the manga, as are we compared to the main character, so the disparity is pretty consistent. But if you ever find yourself looking at a bottle of Les Amoureuses on the wine list, it’s definitely worth a try – especially if you are in love.