Driving — or better yet, being driven — along Burgundy’s Route des Grands Crus ranks among life’s great pleasures. It’s a thrill to see legendary vineyard plots whose names alone command reverence. In the surprisingly narrow Côte d’Or, the famed “Golden Slope,” the dozens of climats and terroirs have become an obsession of many an oenophile, and some professionals spend careers trying to fully grasp them all. These vineyards produce some of the most coveted, and most expensive,  bottles on earth.

A little smaller than Maryland, Burgundy has more to offer the visitor than just wine, of course. Dijon, its underrated capital, has appealing architecture and numerous art treasures, and the countryside’s rambling hilltop castles and elaborate abbeys will delight history fans. But Burgundy’s best hotels stand in and around Beaune, a charming town in the middle of the Côte d’Or. Whenever I stay here, all seems right with the world.

A new wave of ambitious hideaways drew me back to the region, and as a coda, I couldn’t resist trying out a new château hotel in Sancerre, just across the Loire River from Burgundy in the Cher department.