Clos St. Louis Winery



After our visit to Beaune, we traveled on a very rainy evening to Clos St. Louis ("Clo San Louie") Winery for a dinner cooked by Martinique, wife of the owner, Phillipe. This winery has been run by Phillipe's family for four generations, with his daughter being trained to take over as the fifth generation.





This winery is located in the village of Fixin ("Fee-seen") where 29 other small family wineries co-exist as competitive wine producers. Every year, one of the 30 families is responsible for the statue of St. Vincent, the patron saint of Fixin - this year it is residing with Clos St. Louis Winery.



We began our tour with a very rainy walk through one of Phillipe's grape fields. Mark noted, once again, that the grapevines are not very tall - mostly knee high - and that planting, pruning and harvesting are all done by hand. Afterwards, we gathered in one of Phillipe's winemaking rooms where he talked about how his family produced wine and answered our many questions. He explained that every year, the wine is different because of the soil and weather conditions.



Phillipe then took us down to the cellars where the wine barrels are stacked and bottles waiting to be filled.



We returned upstairs where Phillipe hosted a wine tasting of four of his wines. The wines, which are mostly pinot noir grapes, white, red, rose and sparkling, were very good. Because of his winery is small, he does not produce a massive amount. You can't buy his wines here, so Mark and I will look online to see if anyone is selling them.

After our winetasting, we were led into a dining room where we feasted on a wonderful country dinner prepared by Martinique: salad with sliced duck, chicken in a mustard cream sauce with vegetables, and strawberries cooked in their wine served with homemade vanilla ice cream, with every entre paired with Clos St. Louis wine.



During dinner, Phillipe and Laurent would come out with discussion about the wine making awards won by Phillipe or his winery - it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed sharing this wonderful country meal together.  We felt very special indeed!



Tomorrow, we head to the French Alps, Monte Blanc and Chamonix.