...and More Wine

Our barge sailed very early Thursday morning (a week ago now), heading back to Bordeaux. The exaggerated tides of this area had been playing havoc with our stated itinerary for the trip. The Garonne River has a tidal influence for 100km inland from the ocean. The current is quite something to see, and the fluctuation in height has a big impact on when we had to sail or where we had to exit from the boat. Sometimes we would exit from the main deck, having to walk up or down the ramp depending on the tide. But sometimes the tide had fallen so much we had to exit from the upper deck and still needed to walk up the ramp. This day, we had to leave early so that we would have the right level of low tide for going under the bridge in Bordeaux.




We had our class as usual in the morning, as we sailed, arriving in Bordeaux before lunchtime. After lunch, we drove to the Graves appellation, south of Bordeaux and further up the Garonne, where we visited Chateau La Louviere. This is a startlingly well set up establishment. The amount of money that has been invested here is staggering. The owner owns four chateaus, but this is his showpiece. It is large, with many buildings. All of the equipment is shiny and new. There were staff everywhere, cleaning floors and polishing things. One piece of equipment that really caught my eye was their Pressoir Inertys, a machine that replaces the usual crush with simply exploding or bursting the grapes, eliminating any bruising of the skins. (Really?) When I made a comment to our tour leader Mary-Chantal about the mind-boggling investment we were seeing, she rolled her eyes and agreed. She later made a comment to the effect that the owner would never recoup his investment, but that it is immaterial to him.





The grape exploder:



The owner's private wine cellar (!) :




Mary-Chantal is a Bordeaux native, whose Grandfather was in the wine business in the Medoc region. She has a degree in history and in wine (oenology) from the University of Bordeaux. She leads tours of wine regions, such as Alsace and Burgundy, as well as the Bordeaux region. She created and runs a Museum of Wine Trade in a historic building in the old wine traders district of this very wine-oriented city. She has also published a book about wines from around France, arranging her topic around different parts of the meal--i.e., appetizers, fish, meats. (Spain and Italy have asked her to do the same for them, but she has so far declined.) She is not only very well versed in the topic on which we are focused, but she is exceptionally well connected in the wine industry. We couldn't have asked for a better person for this tour.

The museum:







Though our barge left the quay at 6:30am Friday morning, we still had to wait until 7am for clearance to get under the bridge. We were sailing further up the Garonne to Cadillac (caddy-ac), where we would have spent the previous night had the tides not been toying with us.

This visit was for exploring the Sauternes region. I'm no fan of sweet wines, but this visit turned me around 180 degrees. We visited Chateau Raymond-Lafon. As with the bulk of our winery visits, this is a family affair. Jean-Pierre's father was the manager of the famous Chateau Yquem for 27 years and was given the rare opportunity to buy this adjacent property when Yquem was sold some time back. This Sauternes area is a unique microclimate that allows for the botrytis (noble rot) that makes Sauternes. Jean-Pierre's sister now manages the winery, his brother is winemaker, and he does the public relations and marketing. This wine was so good. We were practically swooning as we sipped. Jean-Pierre was very generous and poured refills for everyone who wanted it (!) .

Jean-Pierre opening his delicious Sauternes for us (costing about 50 euro per bottle at the chateau, bless his generous soul). That's Mary-Chantal standing behind him.




We were back at the barge by noon. After lunch, our group took a walk through Cadillac to visit its chateau with moat. We were back to the barge for a 4pm departure to catch the tide that would allow us clearance under a low bridge. On this leg, the barge had to lower the roof of the sun deck and even the captain's bridge. Fun to watch.





After we set sail, we had our final class. Mary-Chantal had arranged a surprise with a Cremant de Bordeaux (Bordeaux's answer to Champagne) and platters of warm and cold appetizers. Nice touch!

Because a number of people had to leave the barge on Saturday, the gala dinner was held Friday night. We're new to the cruise world, so this was interesting to see. Special cocktails to start, special wines, and what is apparently a traditional cruise finish--Baked Alaska (which the crew pronounced as bake-ed and flame-ed). We took a group picture on the sun deck and made some initial farewells.

Saturday was a group walking tour of Bordeaux. We took the tram across town to visit a church and see one part of the city's medieval history. We then took the tram to another part to learn more about the 18th Century history. Mary handed us our return tram passes and then most of us headed out to explore the city on our own. We were free until dinner. It was fun to be on our own after so many group experiences, and Bordeaux is a busy, thriving city to see.













We had our final group dinner Saturday night and made several rounds of farewells since we were going to be leaving in different clusters--some by cab at 5:30am, some at 7:30am, most by coach to the airport at 8am. We were heading out by cab at 9am for the train station.

We enjoyed these people so much. It didn't seem natural to just say hail and farewell, but that's pretty much the drill. But, too, 11 days is quite a time to be joined at the hip to a group of 26 people, morning, noon, and night.

It was a great learning experience, ad we got to see and do things we would most likely never have seen or done on our own. Many mixed feelings about wrapping up this part of our adventure.

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