I was in charge of planning a week-long, adults-only family vacation. Where to go with relatives who have a passing interest in wine but don’t want to spend too much time traipsing through cellars and tasting rooms? California was out since most of us have lived in wine country there at one time or another, and besides we wanted to be in a place that was a bit more, well, foreign. Since most of us are Francophiles, France seemed the obvious choice. I first contemplated heading for Provence or Languedoc in the hopes of finding warm weather in early June, but in the end I decided against devoting so many hours of our precious seven days to the time it would take to travel to those admittedly seductive southern lands. I finally settled on Chablis, which
offers not only fine wines, but has the added advantage of being only a couple of hours’ drive from Paris airports. Another benefit of being based in Chablis is that it is within reasonable reach of a wealth of non-wine points of interest: Gorgeous cathedrals, fascinating towns, beautiful chateaux.
I discovered La Maison de la Reine through an Internet search. A recently restored ancient beauty, the house sits on the banks of a small, scenic canal. It is endowed with six bedrooms (each with its own bathroom), comfortable living spaces, and a well-equipped kitchen. Originally the property of Marguerite of Burgundy, a regal heroine of the Middle Ages, the Maison de la Reine is the architectural and historic crown jewel of Ligny-leChatel. One of Chablis’ 20 wine villages, Ligny lies at the extreme northern perimeter of the region. For the wine lover, being in Ligny is a bit like standing at the edge of a leafy, green sea, with an ocean of vines stretching out before you, cresting and rolling to the distant horizon.
The region’s wine production is centered in and around the eponymous town of Chablis. There is no lack of wineries and tasting rooms here. We made an appointment for a tasting one morning at Louis Michel, located in downtown Chablis between the Hotel de Ville (town hall) and the Serein River, the wine region’s main waterway. Six generations of the same family have been making Louis Michel wines. From the charming, fruity and lightly minerally Petit Chablis to the stunningly complex top-of-the-range wines, including Grenouille, Les Clos, and Mondesir, this tasting put us all in a vinous state of grace.
Since we also wanted some insight into the wines of our own village, we made arrangements to visit Ligny-le-Chatel’s own Garnier & Fils. 
The winery is an easy stroll up the hill from the Maison de la Reine. Compared to Louis Michel, this is a very young family-run estate, founded in 1985 by the two Garnier brothers. Xavier takes care of the vines, Jerome is the winemaker, and their father, Joseph, a retired farmer, seems to do everything else (he was pasting labels on bottles the day we visited). Garnier’s vineyards extend over five districts, from Ligny-le-Chatel to Chablis, and cover two appellations: Chablis and Petit Chablis. The elegant Garnier Petit Chablis is soft and citrusy, the Chablis Premier Cru is rich and elegant, and the Mont de Milieu is sublimely silky, with a bite of salinity on the finish. We bought a few bottles of each of these–with prices at the winery ranging from about $10 for the Petit Chablis to roughly $14 for Mont de Milieu, who could resist? The wines were a wonderful addition to the dinners we cooked and savored at the Maison de la Reine, perched on the rim of Chablis.
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