Spring in Bordeaux: Wine and Sunshine

We packed up our bags and took a trip to wine country over the Easter break. And it was beautiful!  Travel essentials: Burberry sunglasses (my go to for stylish sun protection), hat from Spitalfields Market, passport from the Indian High Commission (haha), sample size My Burberry perfume from Burberry (they hand you a sample size bottle if you buy a full sized one at the Burberry store and you can get initials engraved on the full size bottle) and light cotton scarf (unbranded).

We had booked two days of touring vineyards and cheateaus which is pretty much what you come to do in Bordeux. But I think I was quite surprised to see how beautiful the town itself is. It was sunny, and it was a long holiday weekend so everyone looked relaxed and happy and of course, there was a lot of wine. Whats not to like? I will start from the beginning. We stayed at this super cosy, cutesy B&B…

(I am wearing the same black dress I wore for our Summer Wardrobe Challenge with a white H&M jumper over it.) …where we ate what seemed to be the perfect French breakfast – bread, cheese, coffee, juice, croissants, strawberries and cream, Nutella crepes…lovely.

Bordeaux is a beautiful town. Even without the wine to add to its charm, I think its a must visit.

The houses have beautiful ornate doors.

And then of course, there are the vineyards. These pictures are from the first chateau we visited. This chateau had one of the largest vineyards in Bordeaux and was a huge commercial chateau using machinery for almost all of the wine making process. But its quite surprising to note that none of the Bordeaux vineyards use any chemical fertilisers – this is not permitted by the regulations.

Each wine barrel (made of oak) costs about 600 – 800 euros!

  Yup – that is a lot of wine! We then went to the St. Emilion region to do some serious wine tasting. Its a beautiful village and was even more beautiful in the sun. This isn’t the best picture of the windows but look at the reflection of that stained glass! This was in a little church on the way. And now for the wine. These were the award winning wines we tasted – fourth from the left is currently listed as the 2nd best wine in the wo
rld. The last chateau we went to that day was amazing.

Impressive huh? The chateau we went to the next day was family owned and tended. Not grand like the one before or commercial like the first one but quaint and homely. Or at least as quaint and homely acres and acres of vineyards and a chateau can be?

 

Know what I mean? But however homely and quaint, the amount of wine produced is still wow!

Thats our tour group there! (In case you are interested, we went with ‘Rustic Vines‘ tours and had a great time. They are rated no. 1 on Tripadvisor so you know you can’t go wrong. If you need more details let me know or have a look at their website.) Some wine tips and facts:

• the year of the wine is according to the year the grapes are picked,
• most of the wine produced in Bordeaux is red but some white wine and rose is also produced,
• most fancy restaurants have white linen so you can check the reflection of the wine on it. The colour reflected tells you a lot about the wine. In the case of Bordeaux wine, if the colour reflected is almost a brown, the wine is undrinkable so skip it.

And I almost forgot. I was in France so of course, there needs to be the obligatory macaroons. And chocolate. In the shape of red pumps. There were a number of museums we skipped but maybe next time! Only the photographs of the food have been filtered. None of the photographs of Bordeaux have been filtered or edited.

– Anisha