Enjoy being Beaune idyll

The Puligny-Montrachet was poured into my glass at speed, but with spirit-level precision. It was, I had assured my host on my last visit to Beaune, delicious - adding wistfully that it might be some time before I enjoyed it again. An English wine merchant stirred, saying briskly that it was perfectly affordable at home. "How much would it cost?" I asked. Our Burgundian host paused. "Oh, about £80 for the bottle." Or - he could now reply - about twice the price of a Stansted-Dijon return ticket if you book far enough in advance.

An 80-minute flight, and a 25-minute autoroute spin from Dijon brought me back, past Beaune's uninspiring outskirts, into the old town. It remains irreducibly French, a place of steep pitched roofs, cobbled streets and courtyards, where a glance through an archway reveals not a stub of Tarmac but a sweep of gravel knotted together by weeds, and a glimpse of shuttered houses in various stages of benign dereliction.

The Michelin Guide mentions 17 restaurants - a remarkable score for a town of only 23,000 people - and just as many in the Côte de Beaune, the miniature parcel of surrounding country, where vines march right down to village walls (understandably, given that an acre of land at Montrachet goes for about £7 million). This is sacred territory, where a Perrier lunch is considered le travail du diable.

Six Michelin-starred establishments within 15 minutes of the heart of Beaune help ward off evil, in alliance with the caves (cellars) of the nègociants and growers. Many are spectacular treasuries, none more so than that of Bouchard FrËre and Fils, which houses eight million bottles.

The newly opened Hotel de Beaune, the town's first 'small luxury hotel', was bought for £245,000, though its new owners have lavished a further £1.1 million on its redecoration - an appreciable sum, given that there are only seven bedrooms (and no restaurant). The exterior is all 19th century dignity; inside, the designers have allowed themselves a freer rein. The lobby's pilasters give way to an alcoved staircase, then to bedrooms with lustrous yellow quilts on mahogany beds of monarchical size. Bathrooms are exotically playful: chrome basins set in teak, loos screened behind smoked-glass doors, showers the size of studies, black Italian marble floors and walls of exhibitionist mirrors.

The owners are now eyeing the neighbouring-house, intending to add five more rooms there and a restaurant, which will have to contend with phenomenal competition. Appreciative of comfort rather than cutting edge, the Burgundians dedicate themselves to the alchemy of the kitchen.

At Le Benaton, there are no expense account louts working a few noughts onto the bill for the hell of it, just a crop of locals doing business over the Menu Champetre (e32). Staff give a convincing impression of being delighted to help - whether you are taking refuge in a e20 menu or wallowing in one costing four times that - and to guide you through the wine list.

The Burgundians are embracing organic wine-making, appropriate for a region so steeped in tradition, since it effectively amounts to a reversion to pre-pesticide days - tagging vines with strips of brown plastic containing capsules which mimic the smell of female insects, thereby causing all sorts of confusion in rapacious males, and eliminating the need to use toxic sprays.

In the kitchen, richness reigns although those of a fastidious disposition can neglect foie gras, or goujëres - the rich, calorific stew of a bread, made with egg yolks (the whites were traditionally used for sealing wine in its bottles). At La Ciboulette, snugly within Beaune's ramparts, the e17 menu delivers mosa'que de thon frais aux lègumes, suprëme de poulet fermier à l'estragon, and dessert du jour. At the one-starred Le Montrachet, 10 minutes south of town, the salade printanière aux blinis de cèrèales germèes, filet de boeuf charolais à l'emulsion de vin rouge and soufflè chaud au Grand Marnier do its reputation justice.

Way to go

Hotel de Beaune (00 33 3 80 25 94 14) has doubles from about £170 a night, room only. Buzz (0870 240 7070, www.buzz.co.uk) flies daily to Dijon from Stansted. A return this weekend, out Friday and back Sunday, would cost £170 booked on the net.