Saint Emilion Bordeaux Tasting – Sat Oct 20

Breakfast goes on for an hour and a half.  We catch up with Bill and his family.  We plan the day.  We get on the road for the 12 minute drive from the Chateau/hotel back in to Saint Emilion. When we get there, Bill wants to plan what we’re going to do for lunch.  OK, he does have little kids with him.  But, I don’t even usually eat breakfast, so planning out lunch almost immediately after finishing breakfast just wasn’t on my radar.  But, we find a simple place to eat.

We walk through Saint Emilion, again.  Maxine buys the macarons, which Isabelle had told us were a specialty.  We discover that a)they're just the shells, no filling, b)they're in a row on waxed paper, and c) their half's.  They taste fine, but I guess some specialties aren't worth pursuing.

At lunch Bill’s 15 year old flirts with our 20 year old waitress.  She’s very good and Bill offers her a job as a nanny after she tells him that her contract is over at the end of the month.  We’ll see where this goes…

Our first tasting is a disappointment.  Chateau Ferrand.  Bill and Isabelle are customers.  They’ve been there before.  And bought wine.  We do find out that 2005 and 2009 were good years, and that you shouldn't buy wine from a "7" year.  OK, but we’re given a very short talk by the sommelier, who pours us two wines than ushers us out the door.  He does explain something that we'd been curious about for the last month.  Some farmers have been busily picking grapes and their vines were bare.  Other fields, possibly belonging to other farmers, had remained unpicked.  And we got the idea that leaving the grapes on the vines lets them mature further and pick up more sugars and more flavors.  But, what had the last couple days rain done to that strategy.  Our guide tells us that the farmers who've waited have pretty much screwed themselves.  Their grapes will have picked up water, so the wine will be less impressive.

As to Chateau Ferrand, because of the limited visit, we'd have to say NOT RECOMMENDED!  But, a very nice tasting room...  And tastefully illuminated barrel room...

 

 

We do luck out with our second tasting.  Bill’s 15 year old is named Robin, and we pass a sign for a wine maker, Chateau Robin.  (If I understood properly at the tourist office, there are 200 wineries in the immediate area).  It looks like someone’s house, not a Chateau.  And a regular house, not a grand one.  But, we stop so we can get some pictures of Robin in front of the sign.  Isabelle looks up the phone number for Chateau Robin and calls while we all sit in the car.  Someone answers and says “come on in”.  A sixty year old man ushers us into his kitchen…  This is feeling just a bit weird to me.  There are three other people at the table and for a while I assume that they’re friends of his over for a visit and that we’ve interrupted.  But, it becomes clear that they’re just other tourists.  I mention all of this to Bill and his reply is that of course the guy would welcome us in, it’s a Saturday afternoon and it’s his business.  Good point!

Midway through the tasting our host’s wife as well as his mother come in.  The mother takes over our tasting as the other guests head outside to the ‘cave’ with the man who’d let us in.  It actually works to have mom there.  She’s focused on us, which makes it easier to understand.  And when Robin comes in and she’s told the story that we’d wound up here because of his name, she pulls out a special wine glass and offers him a taste!  This is NOT the sort of experience Maxine and I would have had on our own.  And, once more we’re grateful that we can share France with Bill and Isabelle to help us.

We go back to the hotel and have a pre-dinner glass of Chateau Robin wine in Bill’s room.  Then a great dinner!  The hotel actually surprised us in this regard.  It’s off season and there aren’t all that many people visiting the area, perhaps 9 of the hotel rooms are occupied.  So, we didn’t expect much from the restaurant.  But, it was great.  Good food, a nice time visiting with our friends and a bottle of the Bordeaux wine produced on the grounds of the hotel.