Day 7: Wine country visit in Bordeaux (St. Emilion)

Wonderful news: we finally got to go to some wineries!  On day 7 of our France vacation we were able to start off by spending some time trying to figure out how we would go about this personal wine tour and any sort of differences between them and the wineries back home.  We decided we would just travel to St. Emilion in the Bordeaux region to find the tourist center and go from there.  The drive was about 2.5 hours from our house so pretty much everyone fell asleep in the car.

After passing through the huge city of Bordeaux, we arrived in the medieval town of St. Emilion about 25 minutes later.  On the way in, we saw vineyard after vineyard covering the surrounding area.  We arrived shortly after the tourist office took a break for lunch so we decided to take a quick look around and grab lunch as well.  Most of the roads through the town were ridiculous and uneven.  If you look at a map, the entire town has roads going every way except where you want to go to. We originally sat down in a restaurant called Le Medieval but left due to time restrictions.  The tourist office was going to reopen in about 30 minutes so we decided to just grab “cheap” ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch.  The bread was very soft and it reminded me of bosco sticks from back home.  One of my favorite lunches thus far!

Once we retrieved a very comprehensive map full of practical information about almost every winery in the area, we set out to find some to visit.  We stopped at 3 in a row that were closed even though the guide book said they were open.  Things looked bleak at this point since we wanted to get in at least two visits before the wineries started closing.  Finally, we arrived at Chateau Canenac, a larger family-owned winery on the south side of St. Emilion that welcomed for our first winery visit in St. Emilion.

The brothers looking at a vineyard

At Chateau Cantenac

 Chateau Cantenac had about 15 hectares of vineyards composed mostly of Merlot with some Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon as well.  The coolest part was that the son of the manager was able to give us a private tour of the entire Chateau, teaching us a lot about the winemaking life.  He spoke ok English, which was a huge plus because the alternative would be listening to someone speak in French and not understanding a word of what they were saying.  It was really cool to see that all the information we talked about in wines class at Cornell were actually true about the areas we were visiting.  Since Saint Emilion is on the right bank of the Gironde, most of the soil in the riverbed is gravel with some clay as well.  Once you get on the hill, the vines grow through limestone.  It is hard to believe that those little plants can cut through solid rock with their roots.  The French guide was all about terroir, the natural elements that go into making grapes as good as they are.  The guide was very passionate about winemaking and you could tell by the way he presented at the information as if it were the first time he had told someone about it.  We got to see a lot of the vineyard, the place they use to make the wine, and also the cellar they use to store and age the wine. If I listed all the information here about what we learned, that would be an essay in itself.  All you have to know is that it was one of my most favorite experiences in France.

French oak barrels used to age the wine

Once the tour was finished, we got to taste their two wines they made on the property, the Chateau Cantenac and the Selection Madame.  Both were very easy to drink and had a lot of soft flavors.  The tastings were done out of small half-bottles of the 2007 vintage year and it was entertaining when our guide stopped drinking with us and said “Alo, but I drink too much” and set his glass down.  He liked his wine so much and really got into talking about each one’s characteristics like he had a hand in every step of the making.  However, towards the end we realized he said “Alo” and “Voila” too much – to the point where Nick and Lucas started saying it to one another jokingly.  We bought a few bottles and a box top with the name of the Chateau on it – getting a signature from our tour guide on the back.  Overall, I would say it was an awesome tour and tasting.  You find that from wineries like this, you can still have a great tasting wine without being a classified growth.  (find out more about Chateau Cantenac at http://www.chateau-cantenac.fr/)

Having a taste of some very good red wine!

 Our guide was nice enough to call some other places that he knew of and schedule another winery visit somewhere close by.  Many of the places were closing around 4pm so no one else was doing tours.  It didn’t look like we were going to get to see any other wineries.  Luckily, he called in a favor from a friend for us to get a tour at Chateau Soutard, a Grand Cru Clasѐ Chateau.  We hurried into the car and I drove up to the place to grab a tour before it got too late in the evening.

Large stainless steel vats for first fermentation

Chateau Soutard was recently bought out by an insurance company from the original family that owned it back in 2006.  Apparently, the vineyard was becoming too costly to maintain for a small family since it was approximately 22 hectares.  However, the company had “attempted” to keep the Chateau as much natural and similar to the old way as financially possible.  However, this vineyard was still pretty modernized in the way of both how the vineyards were cultivated and also the way the wine was made.  They still maintain the high standards for their wine and have high classification standards in France so I don’t think they are just mass producing wine.  Instead of the small oak barrel aging done in the previous vineyard, this property used huge stainless steel vats to do the first fermentation and then transferred to large oak barrels before moving the wine to smaller oak barrels. 

The lady showing us around spoke like 5 languages, including English, and commented that she could tell we were from America but not sure of which part.  She noted that all people from America speak differently and it’s interesting to also realize that in France you can tell when people are from the south vs. the north, similar to the way we have it in America.  The reason she brought this up was because the most frequent visitors to the vineyard are Americans!  Made us feel special.

At the tasting, we got to try 3 of their wines and one of them was supposedly never available for tasting because it was one of their best wines.  An expert wine taster had come in earlier that day to try it and since you can’t open bottles and leave them out for very long, we got to have a taste of it!  The two that we were supposed to taste were the Chateau Cadet-Piola 2006 – Grand Cru Clasѐ and the Chateau Grand Faurie La Rose 2008.  The special one was the Chateau Soutard 2008 – Grand Cru Clasѐ I believe.  They all were top quality wines and I think everyone liked them a lot.  The coolest part was the tasting room had a white light in the table that allowed you to easily look at the color of the wine against a white background instead of looking for a stupid napkin like usual.  These bottles were much more expensive only because of the classified growth status that was on the label which sounds somewhat silly.  Apparently if you meet all the criteria to achieve the higher status wine label, it isn’t necessarily always done even though the extra word on the label automatically commands a higher price.  I assume that there are more restrictions on the process when you get that classified status.

Wines from left to right: Soutard 2008, Grand Faurie La Rose 2008, and Cadet-Piola 2006

Thoroughly satisfied, I realized that my day visiting wineries was coming to a close but also realized that I will have to come back and visit someday. Our tour of 2 out of the hundreds of wineries in Saint Emilion barely scratched the surface of the search for those great valued wines.  Hopefully I will get to do it again soon.

After visiting wineries, we went back to Le Medieval for dinner and had the price stabilized 3-course meal.  I got some fish soup (which was huge and much better than the last time I had it) and pork medallions with cheese for dessert.  Basic meal, but it was good and enjoyable.  The funny part about the meal was that there was some guy driving around the restaurant corner in a car drinking beer and singing loudly to the radio.  Apparently there are no police in Saint Emilion to stop him.  He went around 4 times before he disappeared but when he did come by, everyone at the restaurant had no idea what was going on.

Too many good things happened today for it to end just yet so I will tell you about our drive home.  Basically we started off driving back the way we came and everything was fine until we came to a part in Bordeaux that said the highway was closed and it made us get back on the highway going the opposite direction.  The way Bordeaux works is there is a bypass highway that runs around the entire city.  Thus, we started taking the loop around the other way to get to the exit that we needed to get off at.  We stopped at a gas station for diesel fuel but there was a holdup.  Apparently in France you can take 10 minute breaks whenever you want and refuse to serve anyone at the gas station.  Why? I don’t know.  After we finished waiting for the gas, we got back on the highway and missed a turn to continue around the bypass.  The best part was we didn’t know it at the time.  About 15 minutes later, we realized we were headed north to Paris and thought it was a good idea to get off at the next exit.  The biggest problem with this was that the next exit didn’t let you get back on the highway to go the other direction.  Therefore, we spent about an entire hour travelling around Bordeaux trying to figure out how to get back on the highway.

Once back on the highway, we headed back the same direction that we went before and ran into the same highway closed problem, so we turned around again and went the other direction but this time we were determined that there must be a faster way than going around the entire city again.  We took our own detour and got off at the first exit to ask for directions at a McDonalds.  You have to remember we are in France and people rarely speak good enough English for us to understand directions.  The guy we talked to said we would get way more lost if we tried to find our own way than to just go around the city again.  He advised it was best to turn back and do the whole thing over again.  So we did.

The other great part about the drive back is after we got around the city, a bright flash happened on the highway.  In retrospect, I believe it was a speeding camera even though I was driving maybe 5 or 10 kilometers/hour above the speed limit.  Since they are automatic, I suppose they get you for even 1km/hr over the speed limit.  I will have to wait and see what happens with that speeding ticket.  I am not sure how they would enforce it on Americans in rental cars, especially if we aren’t planning on coming back anytime soon.

Finally, we thought we were done until we found out that the exit for our town, Biarritz, was closed.  Hence, we drove past it, through a toll booth, got off at the next exit, came back and got off the correct exit that was open, and paid the same toll.  Overall, a super fun driving experience that really makes you appreciate American highway systems much more.  Blah, at least that was over.  I think the two experiences of the day sort of counteracted one another into making it an OK day.  At least we made it home safely.