Philip Haslet, Founder (formerly Kairos Travel), is consulted on travel tips in France’s Burgundy wine region, excerpted from Town And Country published Dec 14, 2022

American expats Denise Dupré and Mark Nunnelly who run the five-star Royal Champagne hotel in that region, are reinventing the Clos de la Commarainen estate as a 23-room hotel in a 12th-century château (connected to the dukes of Burgundy) and anchored by its 10 acres of Pommard Premier Cru. It will form the basis of a revival of winemaking here, something that last took place 20 years ago.

Arriving at the end of 2023 is COMO Le Montrachet, an albergo diffuso–style hotel nestled around a charming village square a few miles south of Beaune (Christina Ong’s fourth European site).

The lodging shortage solved, another issue persists. (Great pleasures are often hard won.) And that is access to Burgundy’s prized small-batch production. According to Philip Haslett, of Kairos, who organizes trips throughout France, “The winemakers here aren’t as visitor-ready as those in Champagne or even Bordeaux. The farmers are not turning up in a BMW—they’re the real deal, so it doesn’t matter who you are, because they don’t have anything extra to sell.”

Which is why Haslett works with guides who have deep roots here, such as Youri Lebault of Bourgogne Gold Tour, who specializes in opening near-impossible cellar doors (guiding is essential due to Burgundy’s fragmented, jigsaw-like terroir, which is carved into patches known as climats). “Yesterday,” he said, “I ended my two-day wine tour in a private cellar in the Côte de Beaune, alone with my clients, smelling the wine from the barrel and tasting it with a pipette.”

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