The Burgundy Grands Crus Route

The strip of hillside running south from Dijon is cut into climats: individually named plots, some no bigger than a tennis court, each with its own soil, aspect and rules. The boundaries were drawn over centuries, many of them by monastic orders, and stone walls, gateways and crosses still mark them out. UNESCO listed the climats in 2015. The road threads through villages whose names appear on wine lists worldwide, and the villages themselves are small, stone and mostly shut. Beaune, halfway down, is the working capital of the whole thing, with a fifteenth-century charity hospital under a patterned tile roof and cellars running below most of the centre.

What you actually see

• The walled climats - named plots with stone walls, gates and crosses.
• Beaune's Hotel-Dieu - glazed geometric roof tiles over a medieval hospital ward.
• Village cellars - tastings in vaulted stone under the main streets.
• The single slope - one east-facing hillside carrying nearly all of it.

When to go

May to October covers flowering through harvest. September brings the pickers and a working, chaotic feel, and many domaines stop receiving visitors then. Autumn colour on the slope in late October gives the best light of the year. The charity wine auction in Beaune in November fills the town, with rooms taken months ahead.

Honest expectations

The famous names do not sell at the gate, and most top domaines receive by appointment or not at all, so casual tasting means shops and larger houses. Prices here are among the highest in France with no bargain end to the range. The villages are tiny with little to do, and the route is a road through fields rather than a scenic drive.

Nearby

Dijon's old centre and mustard trade at the north end, the Hautes-Cotes hills above and the Saone valley east.