Burgundy mystery wine tour: Chablis & the Côte d'Or

Today's programme: 1 mystery winery visit and tasting, plus our welcome dinner

Our adventure begins in Chablis, a picturesque French town where Chardonnay is treated with the reverence normally reserved for royalty and the locals have spent centuries convincing people that their particular limestone is vastly superior to everyone else's limestone. After meeting our fellow wine investigators, we'll head to our first mystery winery, where we'll discover that some winemakers have looked at perfectly respectable oak barrels and decided their cellar would be considerably improved by installing something resembling a prehistoric dinosaur egg.

We'll investigate unconventional winemaking techniques, unusual fermentation vessels and the fascinating characters who have dedicated their lives to making Chardonnay behave in ways that would horrify a traditionalist. Expect magnificent wines, extraordinary stories and at least one explanation involving geology that sounds suspiciously like somebody making it up. You'll also discover why two neighbouring vineyards can produce bottles with wildly different prices despite being separated by little more than a footpath and a Frenchman looking disapprovingly at your shoes.

Tonight we'll check into our hotel and enjoy a welcome dinner, where everyone receives their classified assignment for the week. You might become Chief Cork Inspector, Minister for Suspicious Aromas or Deputy Director of Things Found Floating in Wine. Anyone claiming they can taste concrete in their Chardonnay will be asked to identify which branch of B&Q it came from.

Today's mystery: What came first, the Chardonnay or the enormous concrete egg and is anyone absolutely certain nothing is going to hatch?

Today's programme: 2 mystery winery visits and tastings, plus an unexpected detour

Today we leave Chablis and head south towards the legendary Côte de Nuits, where Pinot Noir is king and certain patches of farmland appear to have been priced by international investment banks. We'll enjoy two winery visits as we explore the wine country around Gevrey-Chambertin, meeting fascinating producers whose approaches range from centuries-old traditions to techniques that would make their ancestors drop their berets in horror.

Across our tastings, we'll investigate peculiar fermentation methods, mysterious barrels and winemakers who have developed relationships with their grapes that are considerably more complicated than most marriages. There may be ancient techniques, modern experiments and somebody explaining why the position of the moon is absolutely essential to the production of a decent bottle of Pinot Noir. We'll also investigate why some Burgundy vineyards are so valuable that buying one would require selling your house, your car and possibly several close relatives.

But we've also arranged an unexpected diversion along the way. It may involve something underground, something historic or something that has absolutely no business appearing on a wine holiday. We're not saying which, although we strongly recommend keeping your camera handy and your expectations of normality extremely low.

By late afternoon, we'll check into our next hotel in the Côte d'Or, where your own private room awaits. Tonight is free to explore the local restaurants and wine bars, where the challenge is to find a magnificent Burgundy that doesn't require selling a kidney.

Today's mystery: Is this a vineyard, a scientific experiment or the world's most expensive allotment?

Today's programme: 2 mystery winery visits and tastings, three unusual experiences and a private Tipple Tours wine tasting

Today we're exploring the legendary Côte de Nuits, including the wine country around Nuits-Saint-Georges, and we've arranged a day so gloriously peculiar that you may begin questioning whether we've accidentally joined a travelling circus. Before the first winery, we'll introduce you to an unusual way of exploring the French countryside, involving a wonderfully eccentric piece of vintage engineering. It has wheels, an extraordinary personality and all the technological sophistication of something assembled in a garden shed during a particularly ambitious bank holiday.

After our first mystery winery visit, where we'll enjoy another selection of magnificent Burgundy wines, we'll discover a place where wine education has apparently escaped from the classroom and developed a theatrical personality disorder. Expect an unusual sensory experience, some unexpected entertainment and the opportunity to discover that the French can turn practically anything involving grapes into a dramatic production. There may be lights, mysterious voices and enough theatrical enthusiasm to make you wonder whether you've accidentally purchased tickets to a musical about fermentation.

Following lunch and our second winery visit, we're heading somewhere truly extraordinary for an exclusive Tipple Tours wine experience. Imagine arriving at a location that looks absolutely nothing like a vineyard, surrounded by enormous surfaces, unexpected artistic creations and a setting that seems better suited to an underground music festival than a respectable wine tasting. Here, we'll stage our own private tasting of carefully selected Burgundy wines, complete with a blind-tasting challenge and the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in front of people who have already heard you describe three completely different wines as "quite fruity".

We'll return to our hotel after a day involving two wineries, three unusual experiences and a wine tasting in a location that nobody would have predicted over breakfast. The evening is yours to enjoy, although anyone attempting to recreate today's vintage transport experience in the hotel corridor will be asked to surrender their room key.

Today's mystery: What has two wheels, makes a peculiar noise and somehow leads to drinking Chardonnay somewhere that looks like a Bond villain's abandoned headquarters?

Today's programme: 2 mystery winery visits and tastings, two unusual experiences and our farewell dinner

Today we're heading into the magnificent Côte de Beaune, exploring the celebrated wine areas around Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Pernand-Vergelesses. We'll visit two carefully selected wineries, bringing our total to seven across the tour, and investigate more of Burgundy's extraordinary winemaking characters. Expect glorious Chardonnay, magnificent Pinot Noir, unusual fermentation methods and people who have developed very strong opinions about precisely how long grape juice should spend inside a wooden container.

But we've also saved some of the strangest surprises until last. Our first unusual experience involves a French obsession with something that spends most of its life hidden from daylight and can command prices that would make a jeweller raise an eyebrow. There may be highly trained animals involved, although they'll probably be considerably better behaved than our guests and far less likely to ask whether there's a wine pairing.

Then comes an encounter with one of Burgundy's most gloriously eccentric collections. Somewhere in the region, someone has assembled an extraordinary assortment of objects that appear to have absolutely no connection to winemaking, agriculture or indeed common sense. You might find yourself standing beside something enormous, wondering how it got there, why anybody wanted it and whether the owner has ever heard the phrase "perhaps that's enough". We'll investigate this magnificent monument to eccentricity before returning to the considerably more understandable business of drinking wine.

Tonight we'll gather for our grand farewell dinner in the Beaune area, complete with the inaugural Burgundy Confidential Awards. Prizes include Best Completely Invented Tasting Note, Most Convincing Wine Expert, Most Dramatic Reaction to a Bottle Price and the prestigious Golden Concrete Egg for Outstanding Services to Confusion. We'll celebrate our discoveries, reveal a few final secrets and raise a glass to the wonderfully peculiar people who make Burgundy such an extraordinary place.

Today's mystery: What on earth have we just seen, why does somebody own so many of them and how is any of this connected to Chardonnay?

Today's programme: Breakfast, farewells and departure

Our final morning begins in Beaune, where we'll enjoy breakfast and attempt to pack five days of extraordinary discoveries into suitcases that were clearly not designed to accommodate this much wine. We'll say farewell to our fellow investigators, reflect on the remarkable people we've met and consider how a perfectly innocent holiday to France somehow turned into an investigation involving enormous concrete eggs, mysterious vehicles, theatrical wine experiences, peculiar underground treasures and an extraordinary collection of objects that nobody in their right mind would expect to find on a wine tour.

After check-out, we'll arrange our agreed departure transfer, leaving you with magnificent memories, new friendships, extraordinary stories and the unsettling realisation that you've developed strong opinions about fermentation vessels. Anyone attempting to explain to customs that their twelve bottles of Burgundy are essential scientific research equipment will be operating independently of Tipple Tours.

Final verdict: Seven mysterious wineries, a private wine tasting in a spectacularly unexpected location, five bizarre experiences, wonderfully eccentric winemakers and absolutely no idea what was happening until it happened.

Case closed. Corks extracted. Mystery solved.