So you’re an American billionaire and you want to play a little bit with your extra cash. What, then, do you buy for fun? Sure, you could do the clichéd thing and build yourself a big yacht, but why not buy a wine château in Burgundy and have your own prestigious grand crus?
It was famous cookbook author Sarah Leah Chase who got me thinking about this. She used to lead bicycle tour groups in Burgundy, and after a particularly fabulous wine tasting with a famous Burgundian chef, there were some in her tour group who were questioning their life choices. “There were those on the tour who instantly contemplated trading a life in investment banking for a life in the seductive world of Burgundy wine-making”.
And so it happens that a couple of American billionaires have bought wine châteaux in the small but elegant wine town of Pommard, 10 minutes from Beaune, in the heart of La Côte-d’Or. They are the first Americans to do so.
Well they don’t call the Côte-d’Or the “golden hillside” for nothing. Good vineyards in this prestigious wine area start at half a million and can go as high as 5 mil an acre, and that’s before you get to the historic Château that’s in the middle of them.
Enter billionaire Michael Baum (who sold one of his several start-ups for 26 billion). He bought a wine Château with several outbuildings and 50 acres of vines surrounding it in Pommard a few years ago, the Château de Pommard. Years later, he’s still pouring money into the renovation. There are vineyards, tasting rooms, and even a wine school, but he stopped work for a while on the Château itself, which is to be a 5-star hotel with restaurant. Maybe because in France the wine business is not exactly booming . Sadly, for the first time this year, the French drank more beer than wine.
Not to be outdone, an American investment banker, along with his Harvard professor wife, bought the other wine Château in Pommard, Château la Commaraine, with its surrounding vineyards. The renovation is mostly complete, so we stopped by the other day for a tour.
It’s right in the village, with an imposing set of gates. You drive in along the allée to a small roundabout where the valet will be happy to park your car, if you are staying in one of the thousand-euros-a-night rooms. Inside is a beautiful salon where you can sip champagne while they check you in. It has a lovely new bistro and a gastronomic restaurant in the cave, which is still in the works. There’s a nice terrace overlooking the vines, and a spa of course.
Dining among the Vines
A friend was recently bemoaning the fact that our beloved Beaune is becoming too touristy, too chi-chi. Just in the past few months, we’ve lost a downtown boulangerie, shoe store and pharmacy, replaced by yet another choclatier and a spa-style shop selling fancy candles and perfumes. Sigh. Of course my friend, who is British, also sheepishly pointed out that we too were seduced by Beaune and moved here from afar, so we newcomers can hardly cast the first stone! We are, however, short a few million when it comes to snatching up a grand cru vineyard. Our mission: to be faithful and loyal consumers of that good Burgundy wine!
And a postscript, RE my friend’s lament about creeping elitism: could the photo below sum up the world’s problems today with the haves and the have-nots? I turned my camera around to capture the view just outside of those fancy gates that lead to luxury, to show another side of Pommard. Though perhaps this is more the ‘elegant vs. the stubbornly inelegant’. There is a story here too…
In the COMMENTS: Bonnie has more info on the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. Francine is traveling in Brittany, Julie’s off to the Alsace. Cynthia has a museum idea, complete with old signs, in Rouen (which is on our list but we have not been). Chris and Debbie, beware those ice cream signs, they will make you into the new French word I learned this week: patapouf. A very cute word for being pleasantly plump.
Favorite READS: Sarah Leah Chase’s book, The Pedaling Through Burgundy Cookbook is my favorite book about the region. It’s part cookbook, part memoir, part Burgundy tour book. Natalia’s book this week is A Stranger in the Seine, by Guillaume Musso. Musso is hugely popular in France, so if you want to practice your French reading, or just read a good book in English with a French connection, this is a great choice.
One more postscript. We were talking about creative signs last time, and I forgot to show you this one. This collection of signs is on the garage of a house right around the corner from us. You think maybe they don’t want anyone parking there?
