28 sept

There must be a law of unintended consequences. I had to thimk of it, today when we started to visit the Chateau du Clos de Vougeot. This wine area used to be owned, and was even started, by the monks of the Abbey of Citeaux. Remember, this was the abbey where Bernard of Clairvaux – that’s where we began our trip – started as a monk.
Well, these monks were pretty much into austerity. One of the things that they allowed themselves was a pint of wine a day. It reminds me of the sign that I remember seeing next to the road, going down to France, warning drivers that one bottle a day should be sufficient. I supposed they meant wine!
But even with one bottle a day, they had to find a reliable supplier. Come to find out, nobody is as reliable as yourself. So the monks in Citeaux started their own vineyard, a little bit up the road at Vougeot.
They soon got some good qualty wine out of the area. Not that the monks were drunkards, they drank their wine with an alcohol percentage of 2% or 3% as an art historian told us on our trip to Clairvaux a few weeks ago.
But they did get a whole tradition started. The monks of Citeaux were successfull, although always a little bit in the shadow of their pupil Bernard of Clairvaux, who should be seen as the real founding genius of the Cistercian tradition.
They, from Citeaux, kept on to their vineyards at the chateau till the French Revolution. Then everything was confiscated to the French State, sold on afterwards. These days the monks of Citeaux do not benefit at all from the, ridiculous, prices of more than $150 a bottle that are paid for these obviously very tasty wines. Mind you, the alcohol percentage has gone up over time.
The monks from Citeaux had to go and find a new speciality. Let me tell you, the abbey itself looks vibrant these days, with a new church, in the tradition of austerity from the good old days, but a modern version, which was sober, and had benches that could be copied by Ikea, but still were not in the same league as what the 12th century monks did come up with. They found there specialty in cheese. Which might not have the added value of premier Burgundy wines, but monks should look at the eternal value of things, not that deluding price that is paid by the market.
Anyway, I bought the cheese, which is delicious, bought a good guide of the french pilgrimage route to Santiago and now I’m going to contemplate on all the unintended benefits that this trip is going to give us. This is the territory of the unknown unknowns as former American secretary of Defence Rumsfeld enriched our scope of the future with. Thinking about it doesn’t bring you very far. Wine helps. No premium Burgundy for us, but a quite acceptable Cotes du Rhone.