‘I needed cheese, I often do. Cluny had it in abundance’

Anthony Peregrine is in gourmet heaven on a tour of the French region of Burgundy, where gluttony is godly

Vespers, in Vézelay, in the best-known basilica in Burgundy; the nuns, once kneeling, now stood to sing, their voices re-primed the purity of the vast space.

A few rows back, I couldn’t help worrying. I’ve encountered nuns mainly through movies, in which their soft-pitched innocence invariably heralds the arrival of galloping barbarians on the pillage.

But no. The only annoyance this evening was a smart fellow taking photos directly under the “No Photos” sign. Otherwise, this was 40 minutes of enhanced tranquillity. Then it was over. So that was purity sorted. Now I needed wine and food – ideally, quite a lot. That’s OK in Burgundy, where the spiritual and the fleshly are rarely antinomic. Religious orders have been so crucial to the development of Burgundian gastronomy – notably wine and cheese – that both come with God’s approval. Dinner is a divine duty. That’s why I was there.

After trying times, I’d needed reviving. “Wellness”, if you like, except my kind of wellness comes not from hammams and herbal tea but expansive meals with wine and cheese, well-rooted in a plump, pleasant land sanctioned by the saintly. In other words, “Burgundy”. The region’s food and extraordinary wines have done more for historical wellness than almost anything else on earth. They still do (and if you truly hesitate between a body wrap and a bottle of volnay with époisses, it’s no wonder we’ve never met).

Now, the wonderful thing about the pursuit of this brand of wellness is that, in going for the region’s stomach, you get under its skin. I set off. Given only a few days, I couldn’t pursue the whole Burgundy food range – Charolais beef, snails, marbled ham, Bresse poultry – so stuck to tracking down cheese and wine, at both of which Burgundy excels. I could feel wellness welling up already.

I started around Mâcon, the Deep South of the region. I needed cheese. I often do. La Trufière goat farm at Chissey-lès-Mâcon, near Cluny, had it in abundance, once I’d tracked down cheesemaker Marie-Emilie Robin to a nearby barn. I can’t tell you how good her riper cheese was with a Mâcon white, so won’t try. The hardest part of the job? “Seeing the goats leave,” said Marie-Emilie. “They’ve provided milk for five or six years, and now we’re sending them to the abattoir. I used to give them names, but don’t any more.”

“I can understand that,” I said. We were in the farm shop. I pointed to shelves bearing jars of goat pâté and goat stew. “You’d not want to think it was Fluffy in there.”

Mâcon white is terrific, but you can’t be round here without tackling PouillyFuissé. I moved slightly further south. Hills rolled up and around, pulling vineyards with them. They rose to the rocky outcrop of Solutré, which oversees the whole like a gigantic pulpit. Flanked by flunkeys, François Mitterrand used to climb it every Whit weekend, in homage to wartime resistance. It was a stark trek for an old man. And still is, so I wound down into the dell containing the stone village of Fuissé, one of five villages producing the great unpronounceable white wine of southern Burgundy.

From the village’s château, the Vincent family have been vignerons for five generations, so are largely on top of the job. Bénédicte Vincent effervesced about wine, grapes, the vineyards unravelling down to her door, her granddad. And climats.

Ah, climats. These are the stretches of land, around 1,500, into which the great Burgundy vineyards have been divided on the grounds of different soil types and that sort of thing. They push the concept of terroir to extremes, and bagged Burgundy a Unesco World Heritage listing in 2015. Burgundians have been analysing them for a millennium, and they’re not stopping now, so appear interested and hold out your glass. When Bénédicte poured Pouilly- Fuissé le Clos, I forgave everyone everything. Then I left, north along the Grand Cru route by way of villages – Puligny-Montrachet, Meursault, Aloxe-Corton – so legendary it was a surprise that they existed. Throughout, hand-stitched vineyards swept up hillsides with a sense of superiority unusual in a cash crop. That’s a thing about Burgundy: the horny-handedly agricultural meets Hermès-scarfed elegance on equal terms. Both are vital.

In Nuits-Saint-Georges, I bobbed to see the Dufouleurs. They’ve been making wine since the 16th century. Xavier, the patriarch, was ebullient. “Compared to the

Bordelais, we’re

GRASS ACT Epoisses cheese, above left, requires good grazing land, right