The French Dispatches - Part Huit

On Part 7 of the blog posts about France, we went back into Bordeaux and enjoyed several of their special, local dishes for dinner!

Exploring Bordeaux wine!

Since our neighbors at the Chateau Pape Clement had thankfully changed from Saturday to Sunday night, we slept much better and didn't wake up until the alarm rang at 7:15.  Given our timing for today (Monday), we figured it was better to take breakfast in the main dining room on our own schedule, so we wandered downstairs, seeking sustenance.

Another gorgeous room with lovely antiques!

Not a bad view!

(As always, please note the pain au chocolat)

Looking over the main staircase from the foyer outside our room

Breakfast was once again delicious, and since we got to pick how much we wanted from the spread, we were able to eat it all today.  Fortified, it was back to the room to grab our outside clothes, and then we headed downstairs again to meet our guide for the day at 9am.

Locking things up with our old-school key

Part of our Travelzoo voucher for the Bordeaux stretch of our trip included a day's worth of touring and tasting at Bernard Magrez's other vineyards in the area, the Chateaux La Tour Carnet and Fombrauge.  The tour included a driver, and ours was a charming, late-20s Frenchman named Val.  Val was born in Lyon but had lived in Bordeaux for several years now, and when he wasn't driving American tourists all over this part of the country, he worked for the Magrez firm doing PR-type tasks.  He knew so much about the area, and his English was incredible; it was really enjoyable to spend the day with him.

Our first stop was the Chateau La Tour Carnet, about an hour drive north from Pape Clement.  We bundled into the small Mercedes van Val brought around for us, and as we drove, Val schooled us on the appellation system in France, the differences between the terroirs of the different regions within Bordeaux, and so on (we assured him no subject was too obscure or nerdy for us, and he certainly obliged).  Reaching La Tour Carnet, we figured Val would let us out of the van and turn us over to the tour guides there, picking us up at the conclusion of our tour and tasting (we've done one other "wine day" with a driver - in Paso Robles with Dad and Risa - and that was the way it worked there).  Mais non!  We were wrong!

Since early February is the lowest of low season in most of France, the wineries we'd visit today were completely closed to normal tours.  With our voucher package, we had special access to historic buildings, production facilities, and tasting rooms, and Val would be our guide through the entire experience.  He grabbed the keys to the chateau and opened it up for us to take a look inside.

La Tour Carnet!

Tour in French is "tower" (La Tour Eiffel, for example)

La Tour Carnet dates back to the 12th century and was originally owned by French nobles who backed the British in the Hundred Years War (Val: "you know the Hundred Years War?" Chris: "was that the War of the Roses?" Pay no attention to the Americans, please, they know nothing of European history).  A much larger chateau used to sit on the property, but in the later years of the 1700s (around 1789 or so), a marauding band of revolutionaries set fire to it and this is all that remains today.  As we entered what's left of the Carnet, Val also told us that after revolutionaries would "reclaim" noble estates and lands for the people of France, they would plant cypress trees as a symbol of the resistance.

The cypress at La Tour Carnet

The huge cypress tree at Pape Clement, showing in an earlier post, now made more sense

We had a stroll through the property as it currently stands, and it's still a beautiful place, with two small bedrooms you can rent in high season.

The bust is to acknowledge Bordeaux's role as one of the points in the

Atlantic triangular slave trade from the 1500-1800s 

Not a bad room for breakfast, non?

They even have a MOAT!

(and some swans that live on site to swim in it)

Just a few priceless antiques hanging around, NBD

After our tour of La Tour, it was time to visit the winery!

The main fermentation room

Wine slumbering in barrels

More fermentation tanks...

...and more barrels!

I can't tell you how neat it was to have the whole winery to ourselves, other than the folks actually working there (they were steaming new French oak barrels when we wandered through).  We truly didn't expect that when we signed up for the voucher we purchased, and it was an unexpected treat.  Time to taste!

The two wines we tried at La Tour Carnet - both were delicious

I thought all of the extra big bottles were called "magnums,"

but that's just one specific size (1.5 liters).

The biggest one is a Nebuchadnezzar, and it holds 15 liters!

(Tall husband included for scale)

If you consult the handy wine map I shared in the last blog (and included below), you'll see that Chateau La Tour Carnet is located in the Medoc appellation, on the left bank of the Garonne, which normally means it would be packed with cabernet sauvignon grapes.  However, since the soil here is more clay-like than limestone-ish, things are merlot forward here (although lots of different varieties are grown onsite).

After we all took a bathroom break and Val locked up the chateau and winery, it was back in the van and on to our next stop, the adorable medieval village of Saint Emilion, where we'd have lunch.

Adieu, La Tour!

Au revoir!

Amy

PS - The kid decided barking is jerky behavior, and she's settled in for snuggles instead:

Look at that sweet face!