Wine Tasting in St. Emillion

LOCATION:

St. Emillion, France

 

Though we certainly drank our fair share of vin within Bordeaux city limits, we decided to venture out to the nearby village of St. Emillion to truly get a taste of what this region is famous for. On the drive, our guide explained quite a bit about wine production in the area. Some of the more interesting facts to me: "chateau" in this area means "vineyard" instead of "castle," the right and left banks of the river (though not that far apart) produce vastly different types of wine because of climate and soil, new vines are only allowed to be watered by growers for the first three years and then they must be watered by the rain, and Bordeaux wines fall into many different classifications - Classe, Grand Cru Classe, A, B, C, and D - which are voted on every ten years by experts. Our visit was to the Chateau Faugeres, a Grand Cru Classe vineyard.

 

This was much more modern than I have seen, though preliminary fermentation was still done in oak vats

 

 

The barrels (French oak, of course) were automatically rotated 40 times per day.

After learning how the wine was made, we finally got to taste the finished product. The cool part about this tasting was that we only tried one particular kind of wine, but from two different years, and we could all definitely taste the differences. Apparently 2007 was not such a great year, but 2009 and 2010 were great.

Another sunny day, perfect for wine tasting.

Nice Legs!

 

After touring the chateau, we toured the town of St. Emilliom. It was quite charming, and (in addition to more wine!) we tasted regional macaroons which were much sweeter than those in Paris. We also stopped by this awesome church, which is currently the largest church in Europe that is carved out of stone.

Vines, as far as the eye could see. They should begin to bud in a few weeks, and the harvest will be in September.

 

Such a cute little town, with two streets - "little fountain" and "big fountain"

 

The church. Unfortunately, inside access is only allowed by guided tour, so we had to admire it from outside.

St. Emillion was a perfect day trip from Bordeaux, and I only wish we could have had a little more time in the village. There are many other regions that produce wine in Bordeaux, maybe some day I will get to come back and visit more!

 

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