Monday, August 07, 2006

Bordeaux

Janet and her father are in this picture (in the portal) of Porte Cailhau, a 15th century gate in the old Bordeaux city walls

We read that there was a lot of roadwork going on in Bordeaux, but we understood that it was almost finished. It does, in fact, seem to be almost finished; but the purpose of it seems to have been to discourage all but the most determined to actually drive in the city. Before we were a hundred yards from the train station I was forced to drive against a no entry sign. Perhaps there was some other way out of that intersection, but every route I could see was labelled with a white bar in a red disk. And that was just a foretaste. Our hotel was right in the centre of town and every intersection seemed to direct us away from it. At one point, having been waved into the only way out of another confusing intersection by a group of police cadets we found ourselves driving down a busy pedestrian mall. That this must happen a lot was clear from the fact that none of the shoppers more than glanced at us.

Friday morning, since we were leaving town heading North to the Médoc, the anywhere-but-downtown traffic pattern worked in our favour. Right. George Bain’s excellent book for the Canadian wine-lover, Champagne is for Breakfast, should have warned me:

The Médoc chateaux, classified and unclassified alike, are located north and slightly west of the city of Bordeaux, the first of them not ten miles form the city limits. There is a broad avenue leading out of the city, on which the traveller, having failed to turn on to the poorly marked road leading to all this vinous treasure, soon finds himself hurtling across the bridge over the Garonne, hell-bent for Angoulême and Paris. Once recovered from this mistake, he can have a shot at finding the D. 2 to Pauillac from the other direction. (Somehow, ten or twelve years ago it was easier.)

Nice bridge, though. And thirty years on, it is correspondingly more difficult to correct a navigational mistake. Our first attempt led us onto another superhighway; the next got us successfully off the motorway but in a position where it was impossible to get on again in the other direction.

In the vineyard at Chateau Prieuré Lichine

Eventually we did find our way to our first appointment of the weekend. Unlike in the Champagne region where we got along very well without appointments, we prepared our itinerary the previous week. Even if it would have been possible to be welcomed as walk-ins at smaller chateaux as we did the previous weekend (and that is doubtful since August is not a busy time in the vineyards and even wine-makers like to take holidays this month with the rest of their compatriots), the larger places and the Grand Cru Classé chateaux certainly all required a phone call beforehand; but with an appointment, all doors are opened. The large chateaux seem to be showing several groups a day through their operations, and usually offer a choice of French or English guides.

Many chateaux contract their bottling; but Chateau Prieuré Lichine likes to be able to say "Mise en bouteille au chateau", so have their own equipment.

Our first appointment was at Chateau Prieuré Lichine, where we were shown every stage and detail of their wine-making, from the grapes on the vine to the labelling of the bottles. This proved to be a great tour to start with because it was incredibly thorough. It took an hour and a half, not including the tasting, and our half-French, half-German guide explained every aspect, such as why the aesthetics of the property make a difference to the wine. He had clearly grown up in the shadow of grape vines and was a good example of the kind of person we met throughout the weekend: so eager to tell you about the chateau, the wine, and the history. Everyone we met plainly had a passion for the work and a feeling of connection to their vineyard, even when they were just interns.

Chateau Prieuré Lichine's wine archives, where are stored samples of every vintage

We found lunch along the way, not always easy in these small towns, at a place called the Lion d’Or. This was a real French bistro, what restaurants all of the world calling themselves such are trying to be. Then we drove further north to Pauillac, and Chateau Lynch-Bages. The sense of history here was preserved in displays of old equipment.

Chateau Lynch-Bages' old control panel for the casks has been replaced by something less graphically interesting.


Old wooden casks, from the top

The following day, Saturday, we went South, to the region of Pessac-Leognan. This appellation was created quite recently, being carved out of Graves and taking with it some of the best white wines. It is right next to the city, so we didn’t have to drive far to our first appointment, at Chateau La Louvière. There we found our guide to be another Canadian, a young woman from B.C. who was in France doing her masters in oenology.

Janet at Chateau La Louvière

This chateau was the grandest of those we visited, looking like you expect of a French chateau, including the sculpted gardens, large pond and tree-lined drive it overlooks. Of the four chateaux we visited, it was the only one not included in the 1855 classification of Bordeaux’s great wines (much prestige – and consequent pricing – still revolves around this classification, even though, at 150 years on, it can’t be expected to tell you very much about the quality of the wine), but the one that looked most like it ought to be. In fact, its owner, André Lurton, also owns several other chateaux, a couple of which are Grand Cru Classé.

The accelerated tour at Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte

Our last visit of the day was to Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte. This takes second place for aesthetics, being a little Tudor castle amid lovely gardens (and with, a little incongruously, a helicopter on the lawn). My French must have let me down when I made this appointment, because we weren’t expected; but the gentleman showing people around that day was extremely gracious and gave us a quick tour anyway. As this was our fourth in two days, a quick tour was all we really wanted. At this point, we’d seen enough about the process such that what was interesting were the differences from other chateaux, and there were a number of interesting variations: their casks were of wood (we’d seen only stainless steel and cement so far), the white wines are barrel-fermented, and all their barrels were made by their own in-house cooper. Also, they told us they never sell their wine by primeurs, or as futures; most chateaux with prestigious names prefer to offset some of their risk this way (Janet, who never stops trying to keep companies honest, found a listing on-line to suggest that they do, or at least they did for the '05).

Wooden casks at Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte

We each brought only a half-filled suitcase, in anticipation of having many bottles to take back on the TGV. The places we visited, however, sold their wine for somewhat more than the champagne we purchased the previous weekend, and we wound up with only half a dozen precious bottles. But we’d tasted many more and learned a tremendous amount; stocking our own caves wasn't really the point.


posted 7.8.06

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