Burgundy

Drain to the dregs Burgundy's full-bodied vistas: rolling hillsides carpeted in emerald green, each pasture crosshatched with hedgerows, patterned with cows, quilted with vineyards. Behind a massive quarried-stone wall, a château looms, seemingly untouched by time; the only signs of human habitation are the featherbeds airing from casement windows and a flock of sheep mowing the grounds. In the villages tightly clustered houses—with roofs of slate from the days when they protected against brigands—circle the local church, its spire a lightning rod for the faithful. On a hilltop high over the patchwork of green rises a patrician edifice of white rock, a Romanesque church whose austerity and architectural purity hark back to the early Roman temples on which it was modeled. And deep inside a musty cave or perhaps a wine cellar redolent of cork and soured grapes, a row of glasses gleams like a treasured necklace, their garnet contents waiting to be swirled, sniffed, and savored. More »