The Buyer | How to raise £100k for Hospitality Action and drink DRC on 2 wheels

When Bike2Care en Bourgogne was first mooted during Covid by Louis Jadot’s head of export sales, David Stephan – it was conceived as a way of raising money for those in the hospitality industries who been handicapped by a world in lockdown. 10 cycling teams from around the world would each pick a domestic charity and then cycle 200km in Burgundy to raise money for it.

In France they picked a charity that helps disadvantaged youngsters get into the service industry – supporting them with training, money for uniform, passing driving tests and the like. In other countries those from various ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds also benefitted.

In the UK we have for three years raised money for Hospitality Action – a charity designed to help those in the restaurant and hotel businesses with urgent heath and financial needs.

Wine specialist Hatch Mansfield, in a selfless show of generosity, has each time underwritten all costs to ensure every penny raised ends up where it’s needed most.

This year the UK team clubbed together and put on a gala dinner at Nobu Hotel Marleybone with everyone using their black books to source the finest chefs, wines, auction prizes and guests who would part with the necessaries to snaffle up a bewildering array of lots featuring money-can’t-buy events and prizes.

Christie’s Charlie Foley was the auctioneer and paying guests were treated to an after-dinner speech by double Olympian Sara Symington. The result was net proceeds of over £100k going direct to the charity – over a third of the total raised by all the teams this year and, possibly, a blueprint for other countries involved to follow.

The sportive – riding with legends

Those who ride know that life revolves around a holy trinity of cycling, wine and coffee (with cake obviously thrown in). If you ride you love wine. It’s the law.

It stands to reason then that an extraordinary number of winemakers love to cycle. What has been surprising, though, through Bike2Care is just how many. When I quizzed Dominique Lafon about this he revealed there is a group of vignerons in Burgundy who, once a year, ride for 100km every day for three days, starting on May 1, based at a hotel to which they have sent magnums of their very finest cuvées. The perfect weekend.

So, it’s one thing being a red-trousered drinks writer visiting a winemaker in their château and dozing off after a long lunch, head resting on barely legible tasting notes. But it’s quite another to be riding with iconic winemakers in the wind and rain huddled within a peloton, or careering down slopes at 40mph with nothing to protect you other than some flimsy lycra. It’s a leveller. The copious amounts of their finest sup that follows is therefore well earned and can be savoured within a different context. You may even find that different bottles come out of the cellar ;)

“Who’s that overtaking us?” Why it’s none other Jean Charles Cazes from Lynch Bages, legs beavering away, black beard turned into the headwind. “Who’s riding that white, top-of-the-range shiny carbon beast?” Bertrand Villaine from DRC of course (sadly missing this year). See that man riding arms on hips in clear pain muttering. “Are they trying to kill us?” – Alexander Van Beek from Giscours. “Who are those three nutters on e-bikes from rather more mature vintages?” It’s Guillaume d’Angerville, Veronique Sanders from Haut-Bailly and Pierre-Henry Gagey chair of Jadot.

It’s like a vinous version of Stella Street.

So how hard is cycling 200km during Bike2Care En Bourgogne?

To most riders a 100km cycle with under 1000m climbing isn’t a massive issue. Two days back-to-back, however, will get a few groans from the under-carriage, especially if the 100ml restrictions on air travel prevented you bringing your arse cream.

Riding with 99 other riders on unfamiliar roads, though, many of whom haven’t ridden for a long time adds a frisson of risk, and there are always a few falls, none that serious thankfully.

So, apart from the honour of riding with winemaking legends, Bike2Care has a wonderful sense of camaraderie and bonhomie – rubbing shoulders with wine professionals from Japan, Norway, Canada, Netherlands and China (when they weren’t putting their Bianchis into their private transport and driving up the hills – we saw you!!).

Of course, I don’t mention the bunch of crazies from one particular country (you know who you are) that always seems to ignore the instructions of Jadot winemaker Frédéric Barnier that “This is not a race” and belt off emulating their idols (even though Frédéric always seems to be leading the pack. Weird that).

But suffice to say, old beans, if raising money for charity is the name of the game rather than Strava-busting, as it most certainly is, then us chaps in Team UK that pootled along quite steadily taking in the scenery, eating giant gougère in cafés and being ever-so communal, we quite simply pipped you at the post ;)

A dinner without Pinot

The first dinner proper, after the first day of cycling, was unusual for one reason alone – it was the first dinner I had ever been to in Burgundy where no Pinot was served, and this in Couvent des Jacobins, the old cellars of Louis Jadot where well over a million bottles of the stuff dating back to the Nineteenth Century was resting just out of reach.

When I told Dominique Lafon this the next day, before the start of Day Two’s ride, he grinned “Strange things can happen.”

But how strange. The only red wine we drank all evening was Bordeaux – in the heart of Bourgogne.

When I was an entertainment journalist, interviewing either Stallone or Schwarzenegger, you knew that you never asked one about the other, it was strictly verboten such was the animosity toward one another. It used to be like this with Bordeaux and Burgundy, and still is in some quarters.

It’s as if the philanthropic and sporting nature of Bike2Care has erased all that, however, much like sport did in the Christmas Day truce football match in 1914.

After the success of the first Bike2Care en Bourgogne, Bordeaux’s Sanders, Cazes and Ven Beek took up the gauntlet and hosted a magnificent event last year. So, as a mark of mutual respect the Bordelais showed nothing but their red wines on Tuesday evening.

Louis Jadot did kick off proceedings with two whites – Santenay Clos de Malte 2017 and Meursault 1er Cru Charmes 2009 – that proved, respectively, how elevated a village wine can now be in Burgundy (even Santenay) and also how balanced a white wine from the hot 2009 vintage can be when so many reds from that year became blousy.

There was much discussion amongst the UK delegates as to which of the Bordeaux wines were a point. Although not everyone agreed as to who was wearing the yellow, green or polka dot jersey most of us at least had Lynch-Bages 2006, Haut-Bailly 2004 and Giscours 2005 on the podium which was just as well given that they were the only three châteaux represented on the ride (my order was as listed).

The Lynch-Bages was showing so well, magnificent focus, ripe fruit yet with a beautiful elegance, Haut-Bailly’s powdery tannins were just resolved from that tannic vintage, framing wonderful secondary Cabernet fruit, Giscours had the benefit of a much better vintage on its side and had greater complexity – a pleasing fruit cake note on the long finish. All very assured and impressive.

Just for reference the Duhart-Milon 2008 seemed curiously disconnected between aromatics and palate, while the L’Evangile 2006 had a Napa-esque concentration that the firm acidity could only just handle. Lovely to try them all, particularly alongside piping hot, local organic chicken heaved stylishly onto the table in cast iron casseroles.

Hospices de Beaune dinner – knocking it out of the park

So here we are standing in the courtyard of the Hospices de Beaune, on the third and final night of Bike2Care en Bourgogne. Arses in a world of pain. All 12 of us in the UK team have cycled 200 kilometres over some pretty punchy terrain. Day 2 was into a leg-sapping, relentless headwind.

Hospices de Beaune is probably best known for the charity auction held each year on the third Sunday in November that, since 1859, has raised money for this former almshouse (which now has modern hospital buildings).

It was founded by Beaune chancellor Nicolas Rolin and his wife Guigone de Salins in 1433, as a hospital and refuge for the poor whose health, both physical and spiritual, could be cured, through a vast array of homemade remedies and lengthy stays in shared, mixed-sex hospital beds. We were told that this was so that patients could ‘keep warm’… but this being France make your own minds up ;)

But could a venue be more appropriate for the closing night of a wine-cycling-charity event I wondered?

We are, after all, a group of shattered people who need to be nursed back to physical and spiritual health; we are all in the hospitality business; and we are at the heart of arguably the greatest wine region in the world, in a converted hospital that’s doubling up as a banqueting hall serving up some of the finest hospitality known to man. NHS pay heed.

And, this being Burgundy, we are talking about a quasi-religious experience here. Even those who have not yet thrown themselves prostrate before the altar of Pinot understand that we are dealing with wines that inhabit an elevated, nay sacramental realm.

We enter the banquet weary, in a hushed but expectant single file before being brought back to life with these elixirs of youth – breathing in the perfume of an extraordinary array of wines that have such haunting bouquets they could literally be dabbed behind the ears as eau de toilette. And then sipping them, slowly at first (‘This is not a Race’), dumfounded, speechless, as you are caught off guard and disorientated by their utter brilliance.

I watch fellow guests swirl the wine, frowning at their glasses almost disapprovingly, as if they can’t quite believe what they are witnessing in their glass. How can wine do that? How can wine be that good? When will I ever be able to afford any of this? Can I just leave my wife and family and just stay here forever in eternal bliss?

Words cannot describe the priceless experience of being able to drink a line-up of aged, well-kept Burgundies like this.

Intended or not, they replicated the cycle route, taking a tour of the Côtes d’Or with the whites, before heading around the Côtes de Nuits for the reds, Marquis d’Angerville’s Volnay 1er Cru Champans 2020 bridging the two sets of wines.

Sauzet’s Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champ Gain 2018 en magnum was served alongside Pierre Yves Colin-Morey’s Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chenevottes 2017 as an aperitif in the courtyard of the Hospices with gugères and assorted nibbles. Education in two glasses if you needed reminding of the differences between the two appellations – the Puligny was tense with a seductive ripeness while the Chassagne had such intensity… clean but with broad shoulders and a mineral-charged power, crisp with a salty note on the finish.

As I would have expected the Meursault 1er Cru Porusots 2014 from Domaine des Comtes Lafon was off the charts, still youthful thanks to that vintage’s backbone of acidity but the merest hint of reduction adding to its complexity and amping up the savoury notes (grilled nuts). Possibly my wine of the trip.

But then it was the turn of the reds. To single any out is like trying to pick a favourite child – each had their own place in the line-up like a different facet of the same jewel, the jewel that is Pinot. Each wine was terroir-driven, of course, with vintage and winemaker having walk-on parts.

This was another reason for the event’s mantra to be ‘This is not a race’. If you shoot past the slopes and lieu dits that make up this patchwork of vineyards rather than slow down and let the changes of topography and soil sink in, then you will miss the subtleties of how the land changes and how that is directly transferred to the wine. To quote Robert Louis Stevenson: ”It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.”

Tasting notes of all six reds is a separate piece but suffice to say that for me personally the three that hit all the right notes were Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Aux Combottes 2016 from Domaine Arlaud which is just at the start of its drinking window but had that lovely balance between elegant red fruit and Gevrey sturdiness. The nose had pretty florals and red fruit with a broody earthy undertow. The tannins ripe and fine-boned. Just magnificent.

The Volnay 1er Cru Champans 2020 from Domaine Marquis d’Angerville was at even earlier stage of its life but that was part of its allure – the fruit blue with a smoky note and the velour-like tannins with a precocious quality that was a perfect match for the dish of confit veal shin that it accompanied with such grace.

From the menu, for one horrible moment it looked like the Richebourg Grand Cru 2014 from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti would be served alongside a chocolate mille-feuille with such a pairing declaring an amateur host, which we were obviously not a party to. It was a wonder to see Louis Jadot’s Christine Botton (a relative of the estate’s original owners) flitting around the tables pouring magnums of a wine that would retail for roughly £7k each as if it were a vin de table, her “only one glass” comment at each pour the only indication of what it was that she was pouring into our glasses.

I have waxed lyrical before on this site about DRC (my first experience of it here) and, even though it was by no means my favourite wine of the evening, from its see-through russet hue to its dry, textured finish the Richebourg had a singular presence, seeming to revel in its own paradoxes: elegant yet muscular, ripe but stemmy, floral and meaty, light and dark.

I think I may have actually dabbed some behind my ears.

With immense gratitude

To Louis Jadot for staging Bike2Care en Bourgogne and being such generous hosts – it is worth noting that this was their first event in the Hospices, a venue that has hitherto shunned hosting wine events. It was a triumph.

Thanks to Hatch Mansfield for underwriting the trip and getting together such a fine bunch of individuals – we’ve raised the bar high on the money raised and here’s to achieving more than that next year when the event is staged in Bordeaux.

If you want to donate to Bike2Care the 'lines' are still open - you can click here.

That UK team in full

Mark Calver, director Hatch Mansfield; Aaron Turner, sales controller London & South East, Hatch Mansfield; Danny Pecorelli, managing director Exclusive Collection; Dan Rose-Bristow owner The Torridon (and chairman of the Master Innholders); Grant Campbell, general manager Nobu Hotel London Portman Square; James Hiley-Jones, managing director Greenclose Hotels Ltd; Nicholas Davies, general manager The Marylebone Hotel; Rob Flinter, regional general manager Westmont Hospitality Group; Joanne Taylor-Stagg, general manager The Athenaeum Hotel and Residences; Sharon McArthur, director of operations The Athenaeum Hotel and Residences; John Stimpfig, publishing director, First Press Editions; Peter Dean, co-owner and drinks editor www.The-Buyer.net