Our last day in Dijon we woke up to take a long road trip to Bordeaux, over 6 hours. Months ago, Peter had found us a flight on Eastern Airlines, an obscure airline that had direct flights from Dijon to Bordeaux. This carrier does the flight twice a week in the summers so he scheduled our time in France around their flight schedule. Lo and behold, a week before we left the States, Peter received an email that the flight was cancelled. When we told this story to Steve, our tour guide in Burgundy, he said, “Welcome to France.” Apparently this is normal….?
Due to this cancellation we made a last minute decision to rent a car in Paris and drive to all of our destinations in France. Dijon to Bordeaux being the most aggressive drive at 6.5 hours.
The road trip wasn’t bad. It went by fairly quick. We listened to a few episodes of this American Life. One episode was about a man who slept on the spot in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. The next day he felt enlightened that he would die that year on October 31st. He lived the rest of his days till then as if he was going to die. Anonymously gave his money away, visited and lived with his family. He didn’t die on Oct. 31st and later co-founded a magazine, Wired. His name is Kevin Kelly. Israel is a place Peter and I would really like to visit this year, but with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza, at this point, it might not happen. On July 22nd a rocket fell a mile from the airport in Tel Aviv which cancelled all incoming and outgoing flights, the first time in 20 years. Some carriers are still refusing to fly into Israel. It’s a terribly sad situation with civilians, children and lots of innocent people being killed everyday and a resolution not likely. Hopefully a temporary solution can occur to stop the bloodshed and loss of life.
But back to the road-trip. After about a hundred tolls and lots of beautiful scenery we started to see vines. Oh yea.
We stayed in an area about 22 miles from Bordeaux called Saint Emilion. Somewhat confusingly, the city of Bordeaux isn’t where the vineyards and tasting houses are located, despite its recognizable name. We stayed at Chateau Grand Barrail. This was another knock your socks off kind of place. Essentially it was a castle right on a vineyard. The picture below does a better description that I can do.
We checked in and loved our room as well.
After our long drive we decided to take it easy and just enjoy dinner on the Chateau’s patio. We sat outside and enjoyed a beautiful view of the vineyard and an incredible sunset.
Something that I really love about eating out in France is that at most places the server will ask you if you want to start with a glass of champagne. This is something I find difficult to say no to. It starts the dinner off on such a fun note.
A fun note to end on is the server wheeling over a cart of cheese after you have finished your dinner. The French really know how to dine.
The next day we headed out for an afternoon of visiting wineries. Our hotel gave us a booklet that made it helpful to decide which to visit. The wineries were categorized by architecture, size, and included the classification. You could visit wineries that were known for outstanding castle architecture or visit a smaller one where tours were given by the winemaker himself. We opted to do a little of both.
But first – some wine history!
Bordeaux wine’s classification is Chateau based and not terrior based like Burgundy wines. Bordeaux not only has Saint Emilion in it’s wine region but also Medoc and Graves. Medoc and Graves have the same classification while Saint Emilion has it’s own (it used to be on the same classification method). Medoc and Graves is based on the Bordeaux WIne Official Classification of 1855. In 1855 Napoleon instructed that the wines of Bordeaux be ranked. The rankings at the time were based on the reputation of the Chateau and the price of the wine. Both typically determined the quality of the wine. 1855 was a LONG time ago. The winemakers aren’t around anymore; some Chateau’s have changed to different vineyards. The whole classification just seems really archaic. Robert Parker, arguably the worlds top wine critic, complained that this outdated system allows for mediocre wine to be sold at too high of prices and inversely good wine too be sold at too low of prices. Napoleon…
So Saint Emilion changed things up.
The newish Saint Emilion classification began in 1955 and is updated roughly every 10 years. Again, where Burgundy classification is all about soil, or terroir, St Emilion is all about Chateau. All the grapes need to be grown on the property of the Chateau. The production needs to occur on the property as well, typically in the Chateau itself and no outside grapes can be used in any of the production. The rules are strict and many. We even learned that it helps your chances of moving up in classification if your wine makes a cameo in a movie such as James Bond or a rap video.
The St Emilion Bordeaux classification, beginning with most prestigious first: Premiere Grand Cru Classe A, Premiere Grand Cru Classe B, Grand Cru Classe, and Grand Cru.
The classification in 2006 held much controversy when some Chateau’s were downgraded. Complaints were filed which lead to the 2006 classification being thrown out and the 1996 rankings were reinstated. The houses that filed felt that there were parties involved that weren’t able to be partial to the tastings due to vested interests. In 2012 the panel that was chosen had nothing to do with Bordeaux wines. They were chosen from areas of Champagne and Burgundy, amongst others.
Before 2012 only two Chateau’s ever held the highest classification of Premiere Grand Cru Classe A, Chateau Cheval Blanc and Ausone. In 2012 two more were added, Chateau Pavie and Angulus. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to try any of these wines. Cheval Blanc and Ausone do not provide tours and Pavie and Angulus were booked up while we were there. We did do a drive by and photo shoot at a couple of these Chateau’s. The one of me in the vineyard is Cheval Blanc’s grapes. Peter and I actually ate one and it tasted almost like a jalapeno, very spicy.
The grapes in Saint Emilion are comprised of about 60% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc, and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. This was definitely the place for Peter, as Merlot is his favorite wine.
Real interesting side-note on Merlot.
For those of you that have seen the movie “Sideways” you remember the famous lines said by Miles, “If anyone orders Merlot I’m leaving. I’m not drinking any f**king Merlot.” For those of you that forgot, or haven’t seen the movie – here’s the infamous clip.
Here is the thing, fast forward to the end of the movie and Miles is drinking a bottle of wine out of a paper cup at a fast food restaurant. It was the bottle that he stated in the movie as being his prized possession of his small wine collection.
Do you remember what he was drinking? It was a bottle of the 1961 Cheval Blanc which is a Merlot and Cab Franc blend!
So what gives? This was missed by many because most of us don’t know French wines that well. Miles in the movie didn’t actually hate Merlot. He use to drink Merlot with his wife. Merlot reminded him of his failed marriage. If you think about it, why would someone be so passionate about not liking a wine. At the end of the movie, by him drinking The 61 Cheval Blanc (ie. Merlot based drink), it symbolized him having finally let her go.
Unfortunately, most of the world didn’t get the irony as sales in Merlot suffered after the movie. On the other hand because of his love for Pinot Noir, sales did go up for this type of wine. The world’s ignorance of French wine caused a financial strain on this incredibly delightful varietal.
Peter and I had a wonderful time touring the wine Chateau’s. Most of the castles have the original medieval architecture, all expect for La Dominique which has kept some of the original architecture, but the owner hired a famous architect, Jean Nouvel, which recently added some very modern elements. He used seven shades of red panels in an ombre pattern for a new wall on the Chateau to symbolize the colors of the grapes. Chateau La Dominique is neighbors with Cheval Blanc so if we were in Burgundy, the terroir would be essentially the same – something to think about if you want a good St Emilion wine without breaking the bank – Chateau La Dominique isn’t a bad option.
Below is a picture of the wall and its reflective panels.
In the picture you can see at the bottom there are some stairs. Those lead up to a roof-top view and restaurant. You can buy a bottle of wine and head upstairs and enjoy lunch or dinner with a view. Another really cool thing on the roof is a enormous pit filled with thousands of strongly blown red balls of glass. You can walk on these sparkling pieces and it symbolizes stopping on grapes as seen below in the picture (the white building in the background of this picture is Cheval Blanc – so close, and the terroir is the same).
We visited a couple of castle wineries, where we tasted great wine and took in some spectacular views.
Easily our most favorite winery we visited was Chateau GaudIt’s. Family owned for 6 generations and the winemaker himself gave us a tour. We had no idea at the time, but his winery is actually #1 on Trip Advisor. We had to go early at 10 am on our last day in Saint Emilion. The winery is located in the heart of town and as you approach the door from the outside it looks like a modest house sandwiched between a couple stores. We were greeted by a women who explained that her son Vincent would be giving the tour. The winemaker, Vincent appeared. With a genuine smile on his face he approached us and asked, “Where are you from?” After we answered him, “California.” He disappeared and returned with an American flag and hung it up for us in his garden. We then sat in the garden going over the history of his winey and vineyard.
We were then taken down to the cave which we had to descend by ladder. As he gave us the tour you could just see and hear the genuine passion he held for wine making. It was truly inspiring. He talked about simple things like keeping his grapes vines bushier when he knows it’s going to be very hot to protect some of his more temperamental grapes with shade. He told us about the rich soil in Saint Emilion of clay and limestone. What is so impressive about him is that he doesn’t have all the fancy state of the art materials that some of these other wine makers do but he still holds one of the highest rankings in Saint Emilion, Premier Grand Cru. He takes it very seriously and has studied wine all over the world, including Australia, Chile and the Unites States. He lived in Wala Wala Washington for awhile and spoke about the good weather there for grapes and how Washington winemaking has really grown since he lived there.
Towards the end of the cave he had bottles stacked by Vintage. I found 1976 and there was only 6 bottles left. He had much older vintages with even fewer bottles.
The best part was the end when we sat down with him to taste one. He had incredible analogies. He described wine like you would describe people. He explained that when you open a bottle of wine, “You need to let the wine wake up. It’s no different then people. Maybe your grumpy when you first wake up. The wine might be too.” He said most days he starts by opening a bottle of wine and by the time he gets home that evening the wine is perfect. He also used an analogy to describe the aging process. He said, “You know when you are young and you think you know everything, but actually you don’t know anything. That’s just like wine. Wine needs to grow and learn and experience.” Sitting there with him, trying the wine he made was seriously one of the coolest things we did in France. I could have sat there drinking wine and listened to his analogies all day long. We absolutely loved it.
That was it for us in Saint Emilion. We were off again on a road trip. This time to the French surf city of Biarritz.
Thanks for following.
Love from Saint Emilion,
