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Four Norwegians, two Frech, three Russians and us gatherd for today's wine tour - this sounded like a start of a joke. Charles (the sommelier) did an excellent bi-lingual tour into the vinyards, explaining the history, the topography, geology and micro climate that makes the unique conditions here for growing wine. Classically the micro-climate is such that it NEVER rains when he does this part of the tour - between 10:00 and 11:30. Except today when the heavens opened over Puligny-Montrechet at 11:15. As "les Anglais" we got the blame. After umnberellas where desptched by Patrick, the brother of Olivier, we returned to meet Olivier himself for the tour of the winery. Olivier is the quintessential French gentleman, oozing charm, hunour and good manners in equal measure. He makes 93 different types of wine (in 700,000 bottles) and only allowed us to taste nine of them. Personally, his cellar of a thousand bottles from over the world are each a magnum, as the length of time they can be kept is doubled. Today 120 extra workers arrived in preparation for the harvest starting tomorrow, so there was a buzz of background activity. After this tour we returned to his hotel and to a five course lunch whilst tasting nine wines. Charles the sommelier guided us effortlessly through the tastings, but our own notes decreased from detailed scribblings to little stars as the spittoon was continually neglected. A key point picked-up on was that the moist climate of Burgundy encourages l'escargots, hence why they are a local delicacy.
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