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| The Tomb of Philippe le Hardi |
15th century Burgundy would have been a
wondrous place to live. That is, if you happened to be one of the four Valois
Dukes. These men ruled the province for a century and earned themselves the
title of Seigneurs des meilleurs crus de la chrétienté. They owned
vineyards in all the most exciting places, that is they owned at Beaune, Meursault,
Volnay, Aloxe-Corton and Pommard. These precious wines were then stored in the enormous cellars of the ducal
palace at Dijon.
The
greatest of these dukes was Philippe le Hardi, who aged 14 hard fought in The Battle of Poitiers. He is pictured at
the top in his legendary tomb in the Salle des Gardes at Dijon. In 1395 he drew
up the Edict, which banned the planting of the gamay grape in his domains. He
stipulated that although the gamay grape produced a larger quantity of wine, it
was inferior in quality to that of the pinot. He famously said “the wines
between Beaune and Dijon can be the best and most precious in the world”
If only
he knew how much they fetch now 620 years later…
He was
also possibly the first wine maker to understand the importance of publicity.
In 1398 when the great powers met at Bruges to negotiate peace with England, he
insisted that the only wine to be served should be his wine from Beaune. Sure
enough, the other negotiators enjoyed the wine so much that after the Treaty was
signed they all ordered large quantities of his wine.
He
also loved to throw a huge dinner party and his banquets were spectacular. The
word ‘banquet’ actually comes from his seating plan for these feasts. The
guests would sit around a large horseshoe shaped table with benches (bancs)
around the back. Their backs would be supported by the walls of the room. He also invented the
menu (escriteau), which we still obviously use today.
He would serve the wine himself too and he certainly knew how to close a deal, when his guests were suitably lubricated he
would have artists and merchants come in between courses to sell their work to
his guests. As you can
imagine the guests were enthusiastic after so much wine and would place orders
for the many items and services on offer.
Sadly the
Duke really over did it and died. He must have truly thrown
some huge parties because his debts were so big they dwarfed his duchy. In the
end his widow had to take a loan out to pay for his funeral and as was the
custom she also had to deposit her belt, her keys and her bag onto his coffin.
Brutal but then again we are talking about medieval France.
So go
now and don't end up like the Duke, don’t spend all your paycheck on the
most expensive wines of Burgundy! Go and buy a decent bottle of Beaujolais and remember as Baron Guillaume said “you understand – we are not just making gamay juice, this is the
real deal!”
Thanks for reading and I'll see you all on the wrong side of the weekend...
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