Day 51: Le Grand Crew
There seems to be a theme to this part of our Europe trip. Wine. Sometimes I feel like that fake Instagram account of that French girl who is always drinking. Woah, deep.
Anyway, we are in Bordeaux and when in Bordeaux, you drink... Bordeaux. We took a half day tour with BordoVino to a couple of Grand Cru chateaux in Medoc where we got to see the makings of some of the most prestigious wines in the world and, of course, taste some.
This grape's brothers have gone on to a more prestigiously alcoholic place.
Chateau Marquis De Terme. The wineries here are like castles. Actually, they are castles.
The first time I've ever seen concrete fermentation vats.
Some wines are aged in these concrete eggs, which are pretty spacey.
Like us, these wines are ageing.
It's harvest time in Bordeaux! Here they are removing the stems and sorting the grapes.
(To be sung to that incessant Cottees jingle) My husband picks the fruit that goes to barrels. To make the wine, that I like best.
Is it stuck in your head now too? Sorry.
Wine wall.
The tasting room looks out onto the vineyards.
We're doing a vertical tasting – the same type of wine from the same winery but from different vintages.
We then went to Chateau Du Tertre which is privately owned by a man who used to own Spar (he's loaded). This is a family holiday house which is also a successful winery. And this is his pool and pool house.
The family home complete with trampoline for the kids.
We went into the sorting room and tried some grapes right off the machine.
Look at all those grapes!
More concrete, more eggs. Apparently the concrete helps to reduce evaporation and is more resistant to temperature fluctuations. The egg's shape, besides looking kind of cool, actually encourages continuous flow of the liquid inside.
Barrels for days.
Back to Bordeaux...
There was a surprising number of Japanese restaurants in Bordeaux. We were desperate for a taste of Japanese food but exercised willpower because we knew we would be in Japan in less than a week.
I look like I'm prepping myself to perform some kind of dance.
A store near us that specialises in canelés with their wonderfully caramelised crust and custardy inner.
You can choose three sizes of canelé in the shop. I chose large, because more canele.
This canele didn't last long.
In the early evening we walked to a nearby square and stopped into Au Rêve for happy hour drinks and snacks. With €2 wines, good cheese and fries, we ended up being here for hours. It was also nice to be surrounded by young locals too.
After a few happy hour wines, we got lazy and tried our hand at ordering in burgers with Deliveroo. It was a success! Except they forgot our coleslaw. Bastards.
