The first weekend back
after the Christmas holidays meant another excursion for my little car and me.
I was meeting my older brother in Bordeaux for a weekend of wine tasting and
rugby. The primary reason for the trip was the rugby match between
Bordeaux-Bègles and Gloucester, our team back home. That was just one night
however, and we had three nights and the best part of four days, so on Thursday
night, over the first of many Menu du
Jour we discussed a rough itinerary. Seeing as my brother works in the wine
industry, and we were in premium wine country, we thought it only fair to spend
the majority of time sampling the finest wines available to humanity. Realising
we’d left this decision horrifically late, we headed to the Office de Tourisme first thing Friday
morning to see if they could help us out in arranging a few Chateau visits for the following few
days. After an extremely productive half hour in the Tourist Office, we headed
out in the direction of Pauillac on the famous Route des Chateaux, armed with a “Bible” of information and Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Book 2011. Blessed with
a warm January sunshine, we chugged along the beautiful countryside
rubber-necking every step of the way at all the incredible manor houses set
amongst miles and miles of naked vines. Having stopped at a few Chateaux to take some souvenir photos,
we stopped in Pauillac for a quick bite to eat before our first visit of the
day.
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| No caption necessary |
Pauillac itself wasn’t offering much. We found one “restaurant” open for
business on Friday lunchtime but other than that, we were the only sign of life
in the town and so decided not to hang around for longer than was necessary. So
off we headed to our first visit/tasting of the weekend at Château Pontet-Canet about five minutes outside Pauillac, just down
the road from the prestigious Chateau
Mouton Rothschild. Seeing as it is the height of winter, the vines are bare,
and the activity levels in the Chateaux are
relatively low, so the tour of the establishment was brief, but impressive
nonetheless. If the tasting at the end
of the tour were a sign of things to come, then we would be in for some
weekend. Of course, the first tasting brought the first red wine stain on my
only shirt, but I thought of it as just another souvenir of the trip and we
carried on. Our rather last minute arrival in the region meant we only had the
one visit booked for the day, but decided to chance our arm at a few others.
This plan was destined to fail however, as we were in the most prestigious area
of wine growing in the world, with the biggest wine-growing names on our target
list. Simply knocking on the front door and asking in broken French whether we
could have a poke around and taste some wine wouldn’t cut it here, but we tried
anyway. Mixed results. Of Châteaux
Margaux, Latour, Pichon-Longueville and Rauzan-Ségla, we actually managed
to get into one and sampled some very very good wine. We also received an
extremely hostile welcome at one of them. In essence, the message we got went
along these lines, “Listen, this is Chateau X. You have to call two months in
advance to arrange a visit and anyway, we are currently closed until January
2014 for important works. Please move your car as you’re blocking the
entrance.” Charming, but to be expected.
Satisfied with our
day’s work and wanting to arrive at the stadium in plenty of time to soak up
the atmosphere, we started the return journey back to Bordeaux after a
productive day in the Haut-Médoc.
Our plan to arrive at Stade André Moga in good time was foiled
by an almighty traffic jam on the main road in Bordeaux, something which we
later learnt is a daily ritual. After about an hour of no movement at all, we
ditched the car somewhere in the city centre and hopped on the tram back to the
hotel for a quick turnaround and then headed straight to the stadium. On
arrival, we discovered that the Gloucester team bus had been in the same
traffic jam as us and so the kick-off had been delayed and we had time for a
sausage baguette and some chips before things got started.
The game itself did
not go according to plan for the visitors during the first half and it required
a strong second half performance along with the ever-reliable right boot of
Freddie Burns to give Gloucester the victory that the formbook demanded. As is
commonplace with rugby, the players joined the fans in the bar after the game
for beers, something which hasn’t happened in football for at least 70 years.
Just as the fans appreciated the players coming to join them in the bar, the
players definitely appreciated the fans travelling from Gloucestershire.
Anyway, the players may have sloped off, but the fans moved the party into the
city centre and in spite of knowing we still had two days of wine tasting to come, we
followed the troupe too.
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| Not bad for €5 |
Getting up the following morning was a struggle.
Before we could start the wine for the day, we had to track down the car before
9am to avoid a parking ticket. After safely locating and relocating the
vehicle, we indulged ourselves another royal breakfast complete with omelette,
croissant, toast, marmalade, chocolat
chaud and freshly squeezed orange juice. An ample stomach lining
considering the amount of wine we were in store for. Our destination today, St
Emilion. On the “east bank” of the Gironde, sort of, St Emilion is a quaint
little town with a big reputation. Although not host to Chateaux on the same grand
scale of the Haut-Medoc, St Emilion in fact offers more for the common
tourist/wine aficionado. One of the main reasons being, there is very little ‘snobbishness’
in St Emilion. Everyone you encounter has time for you, every Chateau will
endeavour to accommodate you even if you knock on the kitchen window on a
Sunday afternoon in early January! The town centre itself has plenty of
restaurants, cafés and bars to appease the hoards of tourists that descend on
the town during the sunnier months. In the second week of January however, it
was a delightful little place, with its cobbled streets and numerous wine
shops, not to mention the monolithic church and underground caves, all which
helped earn the town its status as a UNESCO Heritage site. As ever, the Office de Tourisme was helpful beyond
all belief, providing us a list and suggestions of all the establishments we
could and should visit over the weekend (we liked it so much that we decided to
return the next day). Over the two days, we visited our fair share of small
family-run establishments as well as some larger ones and at one house, late on
Sunday evening, we even managed to small-talk our way into the cellar to try
some of the 2011 and 2012 vintages straight out of their barrels!!! So if you
happen to be in the Bordeaux area with time to kill, and haven’t made any advance
bookings, head to St Emilion and go cherry-knocking on Chateaux doors, you
never know what you’ll be greeted with.
It truly was a great
weekend on all counts, and returning to Fumel late on Sunday night was a bit of
a ball-ache, but my trusty steed served me well the whole way home. An
expensive but delightful weekend in the country, thouroughly recommended.
Apologies for copious references to Withnail & I, seemed appropriate at the time.
Hui
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