October 21–29, 2028 · Eight Nights
Beaune as the hearth — the Hôtel-Dieu under its impossible roof, the Route des Grands Crus with the new vintage in barrel, a winemaker's table among the whites — then south through Cluny and Solutré to the golden stones of the Beaujolais, where gamay makes the wine the Nouveau circus never mentions. As late in October as Burgundy stays golden. Immersive, not luxury.
This is a focused wine adventure. Burgundy is the place where wine and ground stopped being separable — a thousand named parcels, each with its own soil and centuries of paperwork, mapped one climat at a time. The week makes that legible the honest way: a tasting crawl of Beaune itself, cellar to cellar on foot; the slope, village by village; and tables where the person pouring grew the thing in the glass.
Late October is the season the region keeps for itself. Harvest is in, the new vintage is settling into barrel, the slope turns gold, and the growers finally have time to talk. We end in the Beaujolais — golden villages, granite crus, a starred table in the vines — and say goodbye in Lyon, France's great food city. Six travellers, any mix — all solos, all couples, or anything between — tended like a dinner party, not a tour.
The week keeps two hearths, and finishes with a city night. Five nights in a maison inside Beaune's old walls — the cellars, the Hôtel-Dieu, and the morning market a short walk from your door. Then two nights among the Pierres Dorées, the golden-stone villages of the southern Beaujolais, where the light at sunset explains the name. A last night in Lyon closes the week — on Place Bellecour, where we have our eye on the Royal, the 1912 grande dame beside the square's winter wheel. Private ensuite rooms throughout — no one negotiates a bathroom, everyone gets a door. We are securing the houses now; photographs will land here the day the keys are ours.
Each day brings new discoveries. Click to expand and explore what awaits.
The morning TGV out of Paris reaches Dijon in a hundred minutes. An hour for the old ducal capital — the brass owls in the pavement, a proper lunch by the Halles, real mustard from a moutarderie — then we drive you south to Beaune. Keys, rooms, a first glass, and a welcome table where the group becomes a table of friends.
The town wine built, tasted properly. The Hôtel-Dieu first — the 1443 hospital for the poor under the most famous roof in France, van der Weyden's Last Judgment facing the beds — and a tasting of the Hospices' own cuvées, the wines that have funded this charity for five centuries. Then the crawl: Beaune cellar to cellar on foot — the bastion caves, the bottle-lined kilometres beneath the streets, a négociant's deep flight — landing at a family wine table for dinner. Ma Cuisine is the register: a small room, twenty thousand bottles, zero ceremony.
The most storied wine road on earth, driven slowly with the doors opened for us: the low stone cross at Romanée-Conti, the Cistercians' walled Clos de Vougeot and its medieval presses, Gevrey-Chambertin's nine grands crus — and private cellars where the new vintage is tasted from barrel, weeks off the vine, with the people who grew it.
South among the whites: Pommard and Volnay first, then Meursault and the wall-framed climats of Puligny-Montrachet — home ground of what many call the greatest dry white on earth. Lunch is the winemaker's table: courses paired to the estate's own flights, poured by the family. The Rochepot's glazed roof and cliff-hung Saint-Romain close the loop home.
Beaune's Wednesday market fills the squares in the morning — provisions for those who want to cook, flowers for the table either way. Then the day is yours: bicycles on the Voie des Vignes, the car-free greenway through the vines to Meursault; Cîteaux Abbey and the monks' cheese; or a book by the fire. The evening gathers everyone back around one table at the maison.
South through the Mâconnais: Cluny, once the largest church in Christendom, teaching scale by absence; the prehistoric rock of Solutré with the whole Mâconnais under your boots and Pouilly-Fuissé poured at its foot. By dusk we are in the Pierres Dorées — the golden-stone country — with keys to the second hearth and dinner in the village.
The day that redeems a region. Oingt's honey-stone lanes early, the chapel view from Mont Brouilly, then north along the crus — Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, Morgon — tasting gamay grown on granite with growers who never once say the word Nouveau. The farewell dinner is a Michelin-starred auberge in the vines.
A slow golden-stone morning — the terrace, the papers, one last village lane — then forty-five minutes down to Lyon. The afternoon in Vieux Lyon's Renaissance courtyards, and the last supper is Brasserie Le Sud — Bocuse's southern table, steps off Place Bellecour, the Mediterranean answering a week of Burgundy. The night is on the square itself.
The clocks change this morning — Europe hands you a bonus hour, and lunch spends it well: Brasserie Le Nord, the first table Paul Bocuse ever opened, Lyonnaise classics before the fast train. Then Part-Dieu sends you wherever you're going — the TGV to Paris in two hours, direct trains to Charles de Gaulle, or stay and linger in France's great food city.
Not part of the set week — offered for the playful. Twenty minutes from the crus road, and the antidote to anyone who thinks wine has to be solemn.
A room of your own at every hearth — Beaune, the golden stones, Lyon. Come as you are; you'll leave among friends.
Six seats in all, in any mix — all solos, all couples, or anything between; the rooms are fabulous either way. Tended by a host, a guide, and Meritage staff — closer to a dinner party than a tour.
Each traveler is selected for the journey. Submit your application and we'll be in touch.
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