I’m on a Burgundy press trip for SOPEXA. Watching weird morning French TV and reclining in bed at one of the classiest B&Bs I’ve stayed at. Think old (well by American standards anyway) and rustic outer shell and fairly modern and luxurious inside. And they have wi-fi. Can’t tell you how many time I’ve either had sketchy connectivity or just daylight robbery charges at the nicest of hotels in Europe and here I am at the most unlikely of places getting it for free.

So we arrived on a coach class flight at 9am yesterday. Fresh from the plane, we cramped into a small economy taxi cab, which took us down to Chablis. Grubby, dirty, jet-lagged, tired and generally spaced, we dived straight into our first visit. It was a property that makes wine, owns a tasting room and restaurant. Hotel was lovely but wines were lacked soul and I had one of the most ridiculously bad Chablis I’ve ever had — a 1er Cru 2006 that was all fat and round with Mmmm seventy percent new oak!

I was cheered up when our B&B later offered us a degustation that wasn’t offensive. Based in the Beaune AC, the winner was definitely a Beaune 1er cru 05, which was still young and all mineral with a little earthy-animal hint.

Afterwards we headed to a restaurant called Deaux Pieces in Beaune. Lucky for us we were unchaperoned, which allowed us to make crude jokes and, even better, order off the wine list for ourselves. The list was small. I honed in on an Aligote from the ’06 vintage and it was brilliant. All lean and mean and austere — enough to slap the palate about and give it a wake up call. We later moved into a, ’02 Prince Florent de Merode Pommard Clos de la Platière. It was great. I mean, really G-R-E-A-T.

Really owned by a prince, the family have owned the vineyards since the 1700s and it wasn’t fragmented during the revolution. They use new oak but only about 10% and though the wine was definitely on the richer side, it was nevertheless beautifully done. Funny enough this wine doesn’t have any cru status — it’s basically a village Pommard but according to Polaner Selection’s website (the US importers), half the vines are grown in premier cru status plots.

The food at Deaux Pieces was brilliant. The chef was a young, hot, cool chick who cooks and prepares everything on her own in a small kitchen. I don’t want to give much more away as I’m really hoping to sell a story on the wine. Keep your fingers crossed for me!