Today focused on the Right Bank (Rive Droit) through our day trip to St. Emilion. I chose our Bordeaux hotel for the proximity to the train station since we had several day trip days planned. So after breakfast, we headed over for our train-bus transfer trip to St. Emilion.
St Emilion
We were let off at the bus stop/train stop and had 1.2 km walk into town. As a woman in the tourism office said, the town is “a living museum” and has many beautiful cobblestone streets and flanking buildings. We walked around for about 1/2 hour until the bicycle rental placed opened. It was a little confusing because it wasn’t a stand-alone bike shop. It was contained within the Cordeliers Cloister, a former Franciscan monastery. Now, it’s a multi-commercial space with a bar, wine shop, gift shop, e-bike and other motorized bike rentals, and a picnic basket/supplies counter. It is very well done, if a little confusing on where to find the bikes. Answer: main counter.
The cloisters also has underground tunnels, which I’m only now realizing. That would have been a cool guided tour to take. If you’re going, I recommend checking it out as a possibility.
Once we went through our bike orientation (en français!), we were off. The bikes were really nice. Compared to our Arcachon bikes (day 11, B+ bikes), these were A+ bikes. We headed off to our first tasting at Château Tour Grand Faurie. I found it through Google maps and the tasting had high ratings.
Château Tour Grand Faurie
Well…it was different than expected. SMS said it was like what he would expect from a 1970s Napa tasting. We showed up and there were a few people quite busy on the production side of the house. We were told to call Isabelle, whose number was on the sign. After a few minutes of trying to sort out calling through WhatsApp, she and I got in touch and we were told that her son was coming. Who, while I was on the phone, showed up in front of us. He was very nice, but picture a young monotone Friar Tuck and you’ve got a pretty accurate picture of Émilion. In my mind, I pictured him saying, “My name is Émilion. Yes, like St Émilion. My family owns this land. I am cursed to continue the tradition.” SMS finds this a slightly weird mental leap, but it’s my blog so it gets included.
He gave a very quick tour of the vinification area (actively underway). Harvest had completed one week prior. Unlike Napa, they pick during the day. No 3 a.m. wake-up calls. Two of the three wineries used free-run juice only. The third winery ages the pressed juice separately and has it available for blending later.
We toured the barrel area and two personal bottle collection areas: the library and the treasures (best years). The whole thing took about 15 minutes and we bought a bottle, which I think was a little underwhelming to Émilion. He was rooting for a shipped case I think. But SMS is putting limits on our wine purchases since at the current moment, we really have a lot. In my defense, I would like to point out the hundreds of bottles in the winery personal library. I guess I would have more of a case (lol) if we had a basement instead of an apartment.
Next, it was time for lunch. We went into town and had a lovely plat du jour menu at L’Absolu St Emilion. We each had the goat cheese salad, coq au vin, and two different desserts: a dense, moist chocolate cake and an Île dessert which was merengue in a pool of sweetness, maybe with a large amount of condensed mild and vanilla?
Le Dome
Our next tasting was at Le Dome. This was a very Napa-like experience. The dome is in the slight depression of St Emilion so there are incredible views up the slight surrounding hills of beautiful vineyards and impressive chateaus. The Dome itself is designed by Norman Foster, a famous architect who does not like straight lines. He designed Apple Park and other very famous projects. It is an absolutely incredible building.
Le Dome is owned by a British petro businessman and branding-wise, seems to fancy himself a bit of an outsider. An outsider with lots and lots of money, yet somehow, this doesn’t buy complete access into the Bordeaux club. The two wines we tried were a nice combo of a 30/70 and 70/30 mix of merlot and Cabernet franc. The latter is not often used as a majority grape in most Bordeaux blends. The 70/30 CF/merlot is Le Dôme, while the 30/70 CF/merlot is from the adjacent grounds of Vieux Château Maserat, which was the prior estate that the Dome (the building) was now on.
Overall, it was a great tour and an incredible building. The wines were quite good. They were fairly expensive and, see prior paragraph, not something we decided to purchase. It’s funny because I had booked this tour by mistake- there’s another estate owned by The Dome owner that’s his first purchase, but I thought the Dome wines sounded more delicious. But when the modern building popped up, I was sad but couldn’t figure out how to cancel. But it all worked out. This was a real delight!
Chateau Grangey
We had one more tour to go, so we cycled east to Chateau Grangey, which was my favorite of the day! Franck is owner/farmer/winemaker and led our private tour for two. He is awesome! He led us through the production side, where he really explained the vinification process well. I had never really put it all together in my head, but a lot happens in the first part of winemaking in the large tanks!
It usually lasts 2-4 weeks, and the juice is in contact with the grape skins during that time. It can be enhanced by punching skins down from the top, circulating juice through hoses to take juice from below and spray it from above over the skins, and by using concrete eggs with oval shapes that create natural gentle circulation.
After vinification, the wine is put into barrels. I can’t remember who does what at each winery, but different methods we heard were making a first blend right at the time of barreling, blending six weeks after being in the barrel, or making a blend of all the different barrels (pressed juice, each plot, each varietal, etc) at the end of 12-18 months.
For the St. Emilion AOC, they cannot use pesticides, they cannot irrigate, they must barrel/amphora/concrete age for at least 12 months, and they must have 12 or fewer grape clusters/vine/hectacre. There are other rules for sure, but these are the main ones I remember. The lack of irrigation is not a problem for the clay-based soil, but Franck said some gravelly areas of the Right Bank and the sandy/gravelly Left Bank are starting to have issues/concerns due to rising heat and climate change.
At Franck’s, we tried seven wines. Don’t worry, the pours throughout the tastings are very small! I still would recommend a driver if you were going by auto just in case. He poured his table wine, 5 plot blend of Merlot (100%, I think?), a vertical of 2021 (cool), 2023 (warm) and 2014 (older) blends, and his higher end bottling. They were all really good and, in addition, I thought he and his story were awesome, which SMS rightly says I’m a sucker for. So here, we did buy wine and are having it shipped to us in the US. Yay!
After our wine tastings, we rode into town and turned in our bikes. They were due at 6, and we turned them in ~5:30. It was really an excellent experience and I highly recommend it. They can give bike instructions in English so don’t worry if you don’t speak French.
Back to Bordeaux
We took the direct train into Bordeaux. For both our Arcachon and St. Emilion trips, the morning was a train-bus combo while direct trains were available in the afternoon. Not sure why, but it is nice to have a direct train!
For dinner, we went to Boeuf Gourmand which is the restaurant where I’ve now had the biggest discrepancy between good Google reviews for the dinner and a terrible dining experience. The steak was pretty much inedible. It was so tough. I really don’t think I’ve had a worse steak, so this marked two nights in a row of steak frites misses that honestly, were bad and worse. Now I don’t even want to try it again! Oh well, win some, lose some.
Then it was back to the hotel. It was a little later than the night prior and felt a little sketchy but not terribly so. But if you want a more touristy experience, staying in the old downtown would be the place. I’m still glad we stayed here because the convenience was so nice for our day trips and the hotel itself was very functional with a decent-sized room.
I love your description of the young tour guide destined to remain in this hell. LOL.
I assume all of these tours are in French? Your French must be really good! I’m glad you got some wine to send home. Because yeah, apartment living means not much room, but on the other hand, you’re in France, and how often does one get a chance like this?
I think the French cuts of meat are often different than ours. We had some very mixed results when ordering steak. (I almost ordered horse once, which was accidental but I wasn’t paying attention. I’m glad I didn’t.) Our best steaks were always in Paris. I wish you luck on your quest, but yeah, I think I’d take a break for a few days.