Clos de Vougeot. “Wonder”: a breath of youth in the climates of Burgundy

I hope that this will be a seed that we will have sown and that as these children grow up, they will take hold of this heritage.

Gilles de Larouzière, president of the Climats association

Vougeot - ▶ A collective fresco to evoke the vineyard

Sheltered from the rain in the courtyard of the Clos de Vougeot castle, Nuits artist Joyce Delimata guides the actions of the various students creating a fresco representing the climates of Burgundy.

"It's a large canvas painting that's a collective effort, as four classes from Côte-d'Or are participating in the day. It evokes the vineyard in an abstract way with a mosaic of plots. The colors are juxtaposed with brown for the earth, light green and soft green that recall spring, but also orange, yellow, and red to represent autumn. The idea is to be able to harmonize these shades together," smiles Joyce Delimata.

The Henri-Dunant college in Dijon was particularly involved in the project.

"We went to Gevrey-Chambertin to visit a winemaker who explained to us how he makes wine, but we also went to see the vines up close to better understand how they grow, and we were also told that they were part of the world heritage," says Mathéo, 12 and a half, a student in this fifth-grade class who had also visited Joyce Delimata.

"The college is located very close to the first Climats to be listed as World Heritage Sites; some students even have rooms overlooking the vineyards. It's part of our heritage, of Burgundy; it was important to take part in this adventure," emphasizes Agnès Duflanc-Lehmann, visual arts teacher.

Thibault Simonnet

Beaune | Saint-Cœur: - The middle school students put themselves in the shoes of vine stocks

"Silence, the frost is here!" Vineyards literally came to life on stage Thursday in the large cellar of Clos de Vougeot. Around thirty students from the Saint-Cœur secondary school in Beaune took to the stage to perform a forty-five-minute play. Focused, they had been preparing since January and played the roles of the vines under the watchful eye of their director, Matthieu Denis. "I've been involved with the school for many years. We put on a show as part of the tenth anniversary of the Climats. The idea came to give the vines a voice and follow them through the seasons, whether during frost, drought, or diseases like powdery mildew. The goal was to reveal what they were going through. We imagined a conflict between the grands crus and the regional appellations in a humorous way." The students played their roles very naturally, because they keep this ability to act within themselves." The middle school students rehearsed for two hours each week to ultimately produce a perfectly measured performance: "The students told me that the hardest part was learning the text, but it's actually the easiest. What's more complicated is getting into character, listening to the other people's lines."

Climates in all subjects at Jules-Ferry College in Beaune

At the Jules-Ferry middle school in Beaune, the 2025 school year rhymed with Climats. The students worked on this "subject" in visual arts, music, French, and also English. A truly interdisciplinary project. Robin, a sixth-grade student, says: "We carried out several activities this year on Climats, such as calligrams and short videos in English to explain what is done in the vineyard during the different seasons. In visual arts, we also made large frescoes, painted with grape juice... In music class, we transformed a traditional song, Joyeux enfants de la Bourgogne, in rap.

"We saw last year that it was possible to register the establishment to the Climate Views system proposed by the Burgundy vineyard climate association, contextualizes Nathalie Chaillot, history and geography teacher. It was important for our students to learn about the local heritage, some of whom were completely unfamiliar with viticulture." The students also visited the wine school, participated in workshops at the wine museum, and visited the Cité des Climats in Beaune.