The French Dispatches - Part Six
In Part 5 of the blogs about our February trip to France, we wandered downtown Bordeaux on a Saturday evening and had the most amazing dinner at Symbiose.
Time to taste some wine!
Even though we were beat from strolling around Bordeaux on Saturday night, the *ahem* nocturnal activities of the folks in the next room at the Chateau Pape Clement woke us up a few times throughout the night (this is why we always travel with a portable white noise machine...). We still slept pretty well, overall, and we gave thanks to the heavens when they departed the next morning.
When we checked into the chateau on Saturday, they offered to bring us breakfast in our room on Sunday morning, and we happily accepted. Although we know about the time honored French tradition of bringing guests all the food that happens to be in the kitchen at the moment, it was still a bit of a surprise to see two giant trays carted in and set before us; we did our best to not damage Franco-American diplomatic efforts and ate as much as possible.
The one tray that fit in our seating area - the other is on the table in the back of the picture
Looking toward the toolsheds, over the kitchen -
see the steam/smoke coming from the chimney?
The chateau's tasting room - we'll visit there in just a bit
The Travelzoo voucher for our stay here included a winery tour and tasting onsite, and after consulting with the reception desk, it was scheduled for 10am on Sunday. Just a few minutes before the appointed time, we headed down from our room and across the gravel to meet our guide. Of course, we were still early, so we poked around in the shop a bit while we waited for the rest of our party to assemble.
Let's do this!
The gentleman who owns Pape Clement, Bernard Magrez, owns around 90
vineyards/wineries all over the world, including one in Napa.
These are some wines from his non-French vineyards.
Looking back at the chateau from the wine tasting area -
that's the window in the picture above with our breakfast tray
Our guide for the tour was excellent (the whole tour was done in English), and she told us all sorts of interesting things about the chateau, vineyards, and winery. The first harvest at the chateau took place in the mid 1200's, and the vineyards and chateau were bought and sold several times since then. The most famous of these acquisitions was in 1299 when the de Goth family took over; Bernard de Goth was archbishop of Bordeaux at the time, and he later became Pope, taking the name of Clement V. Hence, from this point on, the house and grounds were known as the Chateau Pape Clement, in his honor.
First, we headed under the chateau into the wine vault. This was where the magnum plus sized bottles were stored and where a small chapel was set up, to commemorate the chateau's connection to the Catholic church.
The vault is through this door at the bottom of the shot -
does that round window look familiar?
Yup, it's the one we see from our room!
The vault is also where the oldest bottles are stored - Chris found some from his birth year
The guide was very clear in letting us know that this was not
the Pope's actual tomb, but was instead a replica.
It did make me feel better knowing that we weren't sleeping directly above the dead Pope.
After the vault, our guide walked us through the production facility, including the fermentation and barrel rooms.
Most of the fermentation for the grapes grown on site occurs within these large wooden vessels
This guy holds 70 hectoliters, which is 700 liters.
A normal sized bottle of wine is 750 milliliters,
which means this vessel equals around 700 bottles of wine!
These little dudes were carved into the beams between the wooden tanks -
they represent the celebration that accompanied successful harvests
A different type of fermentation vessel - a clay egg.
While most of the wine here is fermented in the wooden tanks above,
the eggs are used for some varieties as well.
Into the aging room!
The barrel aging room. What, you don't have chandeliers in your pantry?
A slightly different aging vessel for a small batch test
With our tour concluded, it was time to taste some of the fruits of the chateau's labor! We enjoyed samples of three different wines, all red blends, from the first, second, and third label of the vineyard (the first is the highest quality - and highest in price - the second is the next highest, and so on).
Artsy wine picture
The Chateau Pape Clement is on the left bank of the Garonne River, in the Pessac appellation of Bordeaux. Because of its location and the predominantly limestone soil, the grapes that are happiest here are cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, and the first and second label wines we tried reflected this. The third label wine sourced grapes from the Margaux and Medoc appellations; although these appellations are also on the left bank, their soil is more clay-forward, so they grow more merlot grapes. While all of these wines were blends of the same types of grapes, the difference in the amount of one grape used versus another really made them distinct from one another. It was neat to learn more about this area of the world!
Sorry this is a bit shiny, but it's a good map of the region
I really like the map in the upper right corner,
where it shows the different latitudes of Bordeaux and other spots around the globe.
It seems like the line goes straight through Napa, which makes a great deal of sense.
Tour and tasting concluded, we headed back to our room to grab our "walking around in town" gear; we were heading for our final day in downtown Bordeaux, and we had a bus to catch! On our way back to the room, we grabbed a few more shots of the chateau and its grounds:
A very, very old cypress tree on the property - it dates back about 300 years,
and we'd learn more about its history on Monday...
Some of the vines at the chateau
A well manicured olive tree near the aging room
On the next blog, back on the #4 bus we go!
Au revoir!
Amy
PS - Zoe's starting to wonder where her parents are...and she's not too excited they've been gone so long!
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