Left Bank self-guided wine tour: Trip to France 12/28

Now, for the Left Bank! Confession time: I had heard people talk about the Right and Left Banks in the past with detailed conversations about preferences, subtle differences, etc. I thought the “difference” was a super savant, third-order expertise that only the very smart, sophisticated winos could understand. But let me break it down for you: Left Bank: Cab Sauvignon (blends); Right Bank: Merlot (blends). Not to say that I would ace a blind taste test, but the difference between a Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon is not a subtle nuance.

Chateau Marquis de Terme

So! Onto the Left Bank! Our first stop was Chateau Marquis de Terme. There, I had signed SMS and I up for a wine workshop where we would taste the seven appellations within the Medoc Left Bank classification. But first, we started with a tour led by Pierre. He showed us the vineyard, production areas, and the barrel rooms prior to the tasting. He was really knowledgeable although the most interesting conversations were during the tastings when we talked about wine tourism, efforts to grow it, alcoholism within the industry, and AI. SMS says I have a way of getting people to talk a lot and often, bring out some Debbie Downer moments. What can I say? I have skillz.

But we also talked about the wines. And it was super cool! We learned about the 1855 classification, other classification schema, and the wines from the seven appellations. In general, I’ve noticed that wine guides in France really don’t like to talk about tasting notes since they feel everyone tastes differently and should just taste their own thing. To which I told Pierre about the funny scene from Wine Country. He didn’t lol (what!), but he said he thought it was funny.

SMS and I were in alignment that we like the St. Julian wine the best. Then, we split. He favored Margaux as #2, while I favored Pauillac. Then, we switched places for #3 between the two. We also tried the two sweet Southern wines, which he as happy about since he had really wanted to try Sauternes.

Overall, it was a great tasting. Again, the pours were small so we weren’t hammered at the end. This is in contrast to Napa and Sonoma tastings that tend to be heavier pours.

La Table de Nathalie

After the tasting, we went to get lunch at La Table de Nathalie at the nearby winery Chateau Marquis Alesme. The setting was so serene and the food so fresh and local produce heavy, which is exactly what we were looking for.

Chateau Ferrière

Our next tasting was at Chateau Ferrière, which is a leading organic/bio winery. Super cool tour with the scariest, most intense Frenchwoman who, despite being scary and intense, was also really nice. I know this is a hard circle to square, but just trust me. We learned a lot about bio techniques, that include burying cow horns filled with quartz and cow manure (one each) to act as the concentrate for soil and leaf enhancements to help protect and nourish the vines. There’s some current science that support these traditional methods and overall, it was really super cool. As someone who knows that modern science doesn’t have all the answers (although we search and we do the very best with what we have!), it was really neat to hear about the traditional methods.

I wanted to buy wines from here but we are really, really full at our apartment back home. Time to start drinking more and training my palate. But I think we’ll order in the future or talk to our local wine shops to encourage imports!

After that tasting, things unraveled a bit. I had read that Margaux had a cute town but it was really not true. It was super quiet and although it was safe and pretty, nothing was going on. We walked to the train station to catch the bus, which was the midday mode of transport. We were looking and looking- the appointed time came and went. I looked at the app and the little tracker had said it had passed. WHAT! How had we missed it? SMS had seen a van do a little wiggle, but not stop so maybe that was it? Unclear! We waited until 3:31 and decided to walk back to Nathalie for a snack until the 5p train. So, we left and about two minutes later, the bus passed us. ARGH! I ran after it in my most pathetic white lady tourist way (I always think of Catherine O’Hara in Home Alone or Schitt’s Creek) for about half a block until the bus went merrily around the roundabout and out of sight.

Fortunately, SMS thought it was funny from the get-go. I took a little longer to think it was funny but it’s true, it was. We went back to Nathalie and I had a glass of wine (BECAUSE!), SMS had tea, and we split a chocolate tasting.

After that, we headed to the train station. We went back to the hotel to change into nicer clothes for our fancy dinner at Ressources. This is a 1 star Michelin that I had read about during my pre-trip planning as a total must-do.

We were a little early so we came upon the ruins of an old Roman amphitheater, as one does. It was really cool. I was surprised (and happy!) to see there was no graffiti on it. Because we had the time, we looked at it from both sides.

Ressources

We were initially seated in the back room, but then asked if we wanted the kitchen view. The tables were so-so high-tops but so much was going on that it was very cool. We had the cutest waitress with British English who asked several times if things were “grand,” which was adorable. There were two sommeliers, one of whom we interacted with more (and also liked better, so that was nice! Both were fine though!).

My seat actually had a great view of the bathroom door and it reminded me of a play with multiple entrances and near misses. SMS had a great view of the kitchen. We switched during dessert and overall, really liked all the extra action.

I wrote down our courses because they were so good. SMS picked his own four-course, while I went with the four-course chef’s menu. Both choices were great and overall, I would 100% recommend this restaurant for anyone interested while in Bordeaux. The price was reasonable (70 Euro/pp for a Michelin star restaurant!), although our bill went up because of more wine than usual for us. But even then, the by-the-glass was ~12-15 Euro on average, which is less than Bay Area prices.