More Wine and Chateaux in Bordeaux
Posted: September 9th, 2012 by Scott
While we were in Bordeaux we hit up the Tourist office for some interesting ways to experience the wine of the region without driving ourselves around to the chateaux too much. The first thing that caught our eye was a 2 hour class and tasting which was run by L’ecole du vin (The school of wine.)
L’Ecole du Vin
The instructor gave us a good amount of information about the Bordeaux wine country and its major subregions. What types of wine was made and where as well as what all the classifications of chateaux mean as well as the classification of the wines themselves from AOC to Vin du Pay to Table wine. We tasted some wines, but first she gave us many vials of essences to see how many aromas we could name and to get ourselves ready to taste the wines and be able to pin point what the flavors and aromas are that we were finding. This ended up being a great introduction to the region and we felt much more prepared to explore the chateaux of the region.
Just a side note: All Wineries in Bordeaux and I believe much of the rest of France are known as Chateaux (which means Castles) even if they don’t actually have a castle, however, quite a few do…
The next day we went back to the Tourist office and signed up for a “Walking Dinner” in the Cotes de Bourg area. This is an region on the right bank of the river just opposite the popular Medoc region, where the two rivers meet and flow into the estuary. We arrived at 430 and were taken by bus from Bordeaux center to our first Chateau where the daughter of the owner told us about how they make the wine. Following this we came inside for an appetizer of Country Terrine and vegetables and salad. Oh and of course tasting some wine.
Next we strapped on our walking shoes and hit the trail for a 25 minute walk to the next chateau. It was a very pleasant walk through the vineyards as the day was cooling down.
Our Guides on out Walking Dinner in Cotes du Bourg
Along the way one of our guides told us about how the work that goes into taking care of the vines during the growing season. This year was a wet cool summer so the grapes were not ready to harvest yet even though normally this would be the start of the harvest.
Dinner and Music at the chateau
At our next stop we were treated a dinner of lamb cutlets grilled over dried grape vines and white beans (sorta like Cassoulet but without the duck confit) and to accompany dinner was music! Actually this guy followed us to each Chateaux with his piano in the back of  his tiny car! We were amazed that he could fit it in there! He was great though and even played and sang some old American Jazz songs.
At our third chateau of the evening we were treated to cheese and dessert along with more wine and music.
This night gave us a great glimpse into what some of the smaller chateaux of Bordeaux were like and had a chance to meet and hear from the owners and winemakers themselves as well as getting to see the beautiful countryside.
After these two great experiences we decided to make a trip up to the Medoc region to see what makes these chateaux so prized. In the end, I think its just the name. The region does produce different wines as does each region of Bordeaux. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grow very well here and thus the wines are more dominated by those flavors rather than the Merlot driven wines of some of the other areas and because of this can be aged longer and develop more complexity, but from the few tours and tastings we did at chateaux in the Medoc we were left underwhelmed by the wines and quite surprised at the prices compared to the wines that we had tasted previously. Oh well, they do have some grand chateaux to look at!
