In Beaune, They'll Drink to That

Patriarche's caves, first excavated under the direction of the Sisters of Visitation in the 13th century, cover about four acres under the streets of Beaune. Narrow vaulted passageways with head-thumping thresholds hold several million bottles stacked on simple wood battens.

The main attraction here is the ambiance, but as part of the self-guided tour, visitors walked from candlelit room to room, where sommeliers awaited us with a series of 10 wines to taste -- the oldest of which was Corton Grand Cru (1960), being poured from a magnum.

Patriarche -- which is both a wine producer and a retailer with extensive holdings in Burgundy -- was more than happy to break the spell by posting prices of everything we tasted. The Corton magnum was about $470.

By the time I reemerged into sunlight, Beaune was in full swing. In a public hall and in the city's main squares, vendors sold some of the most delectable festival food I've seen: paper plates full of escargot, cured meats, foie gras and raw oysters. There were cheeses from all over France and Burgundy wines being sold by the bottle or glass -- in real wine glasses, mind you, not plastic cups. In the Place Fleury, men and women competed in a timed bottle-uncorking competition, in which hundreds of contestants in groups of four attacked 30 bottles apiece with simple "T" corkscrews. By midafternoon, the streets were clogged with thousands of revelers, flag throwers and every sort of oddball musical troupe.

Going Once, Going Twice . . .

The Beaune Hospices wine auction, held across from the Hotel-Dieu in what was once a covered market, is a whole different scene. In 2005, it was taken over by Christie's, which introduced international bidding through the Internet and phone connections in the hall. It begins after lunch Sunday and can last for hours, right up until the candlelight dinner.

The auction is open to the public, and anyone can bid on the wine, sold by the barrel (about 300 bottles) for an average of about $5,700 in 2005. With transportation, bottling and other costs involved, the auction itself is not really for novices. The Americans you bump into in and around the auction tend to be types who live large.

They are guys like Henry Bernis Alsobrook, a New Orleans lawyer who began collecting wine while a student at Tulane in 1948 and later became a member of the Order of the Knights of the Tastevin, the Burgundy-promoting club founded in 1934 with the motto "Never in vain. Always in wine." Summarizing the auction that evening, Alsobrook said in a confident Louisiana drawl, "I bought three barrels today . . . wanted to buy four, but it got too expensive."

We were off to dinner and many, many wines. I would tell you how many, but I'm afraid Harry's doctor would come after us all.

Robert V. Camuto last wrote for Travel about Dijon, France.