A BUYING TRIP TO BURGUNDY AND THE LOIRE

M. Naulin then took us, including the courtier, to the cuverie to taste the 2002s in tank. The Naulins are very proud of their 2002s, and they look as if they will indeed be delicious. The courtier fiddled about taking samples, which she put into plastic bottles. She also had a curious syringe-like piece of kit. She lost the top of it (clear plastic about the size of a peppercorn). We set about looking for it. No luck. We continued to look. Zac found it. Relief all round.

The courtier pushed off, and Mme. Naulin invited us to lunch. The first course consisted of three dishes: herring, potato and onion salad, a coarse country pate, and beetroot. Zac has platefuls and platefuls. He thinks this might be the main coarse. He's already had a mammoth breakfast. But the Naulins have a young person, Corinne, a girl from Auxerre, who is doing a stage with them to learn about vineyard work and winemaking. She is so fat she is almost completely round. If you pushed her over she would roll. She eats Olympically. Perhaps her example made Zac think that the first course was the main course. Well, it wasn't.

We are drinking a magnum of the Naulins' 1998 Chablis Premier Cru Beauroy. It is delicious.

The main course arrives: a hearty blanquette de veau. Corinne has disappeared for an inter-course cigarette. She returns to eat prodigious amounts of the main course. She stares at Zac hungrily as if he is the main course. Zac doesn't seem to notice. One rather fancies if Corinne were left on her own with Zac she would have him in a half-nelson or more compromising grip as soon as you could say "knife".

Zac is flagging. Last night he'd had a full-blown Michelin-starred meal. Today he'd had a gigantic breakfast. He's filled up on the first course, and now he's struggling through the main course.

In addition, throughout the tastings this morning he's been swallowing, not spitting (he doesn't have to drive, and it's his first time going tasting).

Cheese. With a lovely, mature red from Irancy. Corinne keeps eating. Her conversation during the meal is carried on with her cheeks full of food, hamster-like.

Pudding, A magnificent gateau made with cream, nuts, raspberry, meringue. Accompanied by Cremant de Bourgogne. There are five of us at table. The gateau is cut into eight sections. We each have a piece. Zac looks as though he's going to explode. Corinne continues to stare lasciviously at Zac and swallows her helping of gateau in the blinking of an eye. We are all offered more. No takers, except for Corinne. She eats all the three remaining pieces, in about as many seconds. And licks the plate, and the knife used to cut the gateau.

A wonderful lunch. The Naulins are so generous. They send us off with several bottles of the new vintage.

My impression of the 2001 vintage around Chablis is that it has tamed out far better than the growers could have darted to hope for, considering the seriously unhelpful weather conditions. All the growers we buy from have produced delicious, if forward, early maturing wines.

After the Naulins we zoom off to Vezelay (about an hour and a half's drive away) - we have overrun our time at lunch - and arrive slightly late at -

Domaine Elise Villiers, Precy ie Moult.

We taste her two whites, "La Chevalière" and "Le Clos".

She tells us about the vintage. Rain before the harvest but not during. There was rot. She had to sort her grapes, and throw out large quantities. So it has turned out to be a very small production this year.

The resulting wines are fine: clean, with some weight and a flavour slightly reminiscent of pears (not pear drops).

Mme. Villiers says that since it is such a small harvest I'd better make up my mind about the quantities I'd like to take from her this year. So I do.

We return to the hotel in Chablis in time for supper.

Another Michelin-starred meal for Zac. I had warned him the trip would be hard work. He's exhausted.

I order a bottle of RavenCau's Chablis Premier Cru Butteaux 1995. It's corked. I call for the sommelier. He sniffs at it, tastes it, removes the bottle and glasses and brings us another bottle. It is wonderful. It is far more thrilling, interesting and delicious than the Grand Cru Chablis we had last night. It is the first bottle of Raveneau's Chablis I have tasted, and it is worth every euro of its high price.