Serious wine cellars

In my mostly misspent youth, I used to enjoy spelunking. Caves were everywhere in the limestone-laden hills and cliffs of middle Tennessee, and our family also often journeyed to the amazing Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. As I moved away from Cave Country and developed doses of claustrophobia and basic laziness, my cavernous predilection abated.

At least until last month, when fabulous treks through the cavern-like cellars at Joseph Drouhin and Bouchard Pere & Fils were major highlights of a fantabulous trip to Burgundy.

The Drouhin caves, which meander underneath the cobblestoned streets of Beaune, date to the 4th century, when Romans built the foundation. The Dukes of Burgundy completed the maze of cellars in the 13th century.

They feel every bit that old, and sampling excellent wines in one of those rooms with Philippe Drouhin made for a pretty indelible experience.

The Bouchard caves, underneath an imposing fortress (is there any other kind of fortress?) on the edge of this circular walled city, are equally impressive. At about 40,000 square feet, with some walls as thick as 21 feet, they contain more than 2,000 bottles of 19th-century wine, plus thousands of bottles of more youthful juice.

The impossibly gracious Isabelle Philippe said that a recently sampled 1846 Meursault "still tasted great" as she guided us through the dusty, musty passageways and holding rooms. Like Drouhin's, this cellar has hidden spaces that have proven useful from the Middle Ages through World War II.

Interspersed throughout the cellar are lights that effectively kill fruit flies (but not mosquitoes, my better half was disappointed to learn).The bottles have no labels because of the humidity, and many of them have layers of gunk that occasionally has been pierced by visitors imprinting their initials or a heart.

Philippe said that each bottle gets a new cork every 20 years, when extremely lucky Bouchard employees also jot down tasting notes from the bottles that they use to top off the others from the same vineyard and vintage.

We were fortunate enough ourselves to try some more recent vintages, including one for 1975, and I'll have tasting notes from these and some Drouhin wines in a future post.

For now, suffice to say that I'm intent on stocking some Bouchard and Drouhin in a more modern (circa 1934) cellar, a k a the man cave in my basement.