I decided I should do something with the time I had before the wine tour that began at 1.45 – though I did have to deal with the problem of my phone, since the plan on the SIM card I'd bought in Paris was due to expire tomorrow, and, given I wasn't sure at what time tomorrow that might be, I'd have to make sure I sorted it out so I wouldn't be stuck without a map and communication in Tours. Google told me there was an Orange store not far away, but I thought there'd have to be a way I could do it online; lo and behold, I found out how to do it and did it. Very straightforward. The only vague concern was how long it might take – it certainly wasn't instantaneous; I got a text from Orange telling me it was being processed.
Oh, well; not much I could do about it now.
Time to walk down to the tourist centre to wait to be collected for the wine tour. As with nearly anything involving booking, scheduling, reservations and communication in this country (given how vague, contradictory and flat-out useless much of the information I'd been given since I got here has been), I was vaguely anxious that I was going to the right place at the right time. But I had come to the right place at the right time – although identifying the tour guide happened because I happened to be standing near a group who mentioned the company (Bordovino) and the tour (Medoc) I was going on. Which turned out to be somewhat fortunate, 'cause (unlike some of the other tour guides there) mine didn't have a sign.
We all piled into a very similar silver minivan to the one from Dijon (that one was fancier and newer than this one) and hit the road. My (seven) companions for this trip were all one party, from the USA – albeit different parts (primarily Detroit and one from Oregon) – and, as it turned out, were mostly Iranian (with one Iraqi). I didn't ask if they were all related or how they'd all come to be travelling together, which I now wish I had, since it was probably quite an interesting story.
Anyway, we headed off to the Mdoc region of Bordeaux, which is to the north-west of the city itself. Much like the Burgundy tour, we got a running commentary on the region's wine-making history (which goes back a long way) and some insight into the intricacies of the system.
First thing to note: there are over 8,000 invidual wine-makers (châteaux) here. Obviously, some of them are tiny, but there are big ones as well.
Second thing is that, despite it also being a French wine region, it's run somewhat differently from Burgundy. I'd kind of expected it to be fairly similar, but it's not. There's still a classification system, but it's based on the wineries themselves as opposed to the vineyards – if that makes sense. They also use different terminology – the four tier system used in Burgundy doesn't exist here, so unless you're buying the premium variety (Château), it's harder to tell what you're getting if you don't have a fairly good knowledge of the region and its producers.
So yeah, pretty confusing. But interesting and entertaining nonetheless.
It's not as pretty here as it was in Burgundy. That's a lot more rustic – though that can be put down to, at least in part, the fact that Bordeaux is much more of a city than Dijon is; it's by far the most industrial of the places I've been since I left Paris.
The first winery we went to was Chasse-Spleen. Now, I know that chasse in French means 'chase' or 'hunt', so I found it more than a little amusing: hunting spleen. But it turns out there's a far more prosaic translation (unsurprisingly), since in French spleen refers to unhappiness or 'the blues'. So, 'chase the blues away' – by drinking wine. It's actually a reference to the French writer Baudelaire.
We talked about wine, did a little test thing with little bottles of scent to see how good we were at picking them - I got two out of four, which I was proud of. And then we tasted.
I didn't ask if disrespecting the boot was a bootable offence.
The soil here is super rocky. Turns out that's essential to the process 'cause the pebbles absorb the sun during the day and then stay warm in the evening, which prevents the vines and the fruit from getting too cold.
After that we packed ourselves back into the van and headed off to another winery, Château Gruaud Larose, which is a little bit further away in what they call the Saint-Julien appellation. It's a much bigger and fancier place, as you'll see from the photos.
Once again we wandered around and were told about wine, before getting to drink it. But we got a good look around the place – unfortunately, it was raining pretty much constantly while we were there (as you can probably tell from the pictures).
They have a huge cellar with bottles from different vintages, in a bunch of different sizes, from little ones to monsters they give funny biblical names to, like Jeroboam and Nebuchadnezzar.
They have an observation deck which we went up. The view was spectacular. And there are vines as far as the eye can see.
Then it was tasting time. The wine here is almost all a blend cabernet sauvignon and merlot, with maybe some other things mixed in. I don't think I liked it as much as I liked the wine in Burgundy – but I didn't tell them that.
And here's our group. Note that it's an actual photo with me in it.
The bottles and the remnants of the food.
Oh, and on the way back to town we stopped by Château Margaux, a very famous winery (I'd come across the name in a few books where characters were showing off either their knowledge of wine and/or their wealth) that's very pretty; unfortunately, it's not one you can actually visit.
And that was pretty much that. I was definitely feeling under the weather, so dinner that night was a very nice, medium-spicy Thai chicken curry (and a lot of jasmine tea) from an Asian place two doors down from my hotel.
1Thanks, Lord John.
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