St. Emilion
We arrived in this grape farming community that was planted by Romans almost 2000 years ago in the evening, and not being hungry, set out to sample some of the famous wares. You know, the stuff that Napa imitates? Well, this is the original item, the stuff that started world trade. The very local Figeac was a treasure from a great year while the Certan from nearby Pomerol was amazing for 25 years old.
Les Sources de Caudalie
It wasn’t until the next day that we had our first sample of what Michelin gives two stars here. We tend to do this for lunch with moderate portions of wine as it’s cheaper and better for digestion.
The Town
Bordeaux has been around for over 2000 years and making wine for most of that.
We drove out to Arcachon on the Atlantic coast and enjoyed their oysters with local rosé. The fish shack reminded me of Hog Island and of lobster shacks in Maine. The wow attraction in the area is a huge sand dune.
On Friday, we had two wine tastings. Chateau Lynch-Bages is a new facility with capacity to produce 1,500,000 bottles per year. It’s very industrial in scale. Chateau du Tertre is sort of the opposite, and would be homey and family oriented but the succession of owners were fabulously wealthy, and have decorated the place with extravagant paintings and sculptures, a 50-meter swimming pool, and meanwhile producing 200,000 bottles per year.
Now we can’t have you wondering if I found the chess club so I must mention its charm. Run by a Grandmaster named Sebastian Faze who is head of the French team and a lovely fellow, the place is active in the community and has a sweet classmates feeling to the group. 5/0 and 3/2 seemed to be the preferred games and I won half or a little better.
Arcachon seafood, sand dune
Lynch-Bages above; Tertre
