Bonjour, tout le monde! Hello, everyone and welcome
again to Cépage et
Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog. Today is our first full day in Bordeaux. The first order of business was to find a
boulangerie. Plus, it’s Sunday so some
shops are closed. Our gite is technically in the commune of
Montagne, but the village of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes is actually closer to
us. There is a small shop there that I
would call a convenience store, but they do have bread and pastries, including
this nice pain au raisin for Mary.
Sundays
in France are pretty quiet and we had no specific plans, so this is a good
opportunity to provide some background and context about Bordeaux for the
coming week.
Bordeaux
is both a city and a region. The wine
growing area called Bordeaux is the largest fine wine growing area in the
world. I’ve said in earlier posts that
understanding the classics of wine is so much easier if you go there, whether
it’s France or anywhere else, such as Napa Valley or Sonoma County. When you see the place, you can better
understand the wines.
I don’t think it
is possible to grasp the enormity of Bordeaux without going there. To say it is vast is an understatement. There are more than 9,000 producers, termed
châteaux (the plural of château) with about 110,000 hectares, about 275,000
acres under vines. Just looking out the
front door of our gite is an example,
vines basically to the horizon. Here are a few more photos that are taken from right in front of the
This photo shows a peek of the church spire over the trees in the nearby village.
Take a
look at this map below (with thanks and credit to Wine Spectator). A major river, the
Gironde, flows to the Atlantic. It is
formed by two major tributaries, the Dordogne and the Garonne. The area to the west of the Gironde, called
the Left Bank, is the Medoc and Haut Médoc.
Some of the most famous châteaux are there, like Château Margaux and
Château Lafite Rothschild.
The area
to the east of the Dordogne is the Right Bank.
The most famous area over there is Saint Émilion. Our gite
is near there, about three miles to the east.
The large area between the Dordogne and the Garonne is called Entre-Deux-Mers, which means “between
two waters.” South of the city of
Bordeaux and to the west of the Garonne is Pessac-Léognan, which nowadays is a
suburb of the city of Bordeaux, and a larger area called Graves. Pronounced “grahvs,” the name has nothing to
do with cemeteries. It refers to the
content of the soil, which is very high in gravel. The south end of this area is Sauternes,
which is famous for dessert-style white wines.
The grapes grown in
Bordeaux are more varied than in Burgundy where there is one main red grape,
Pinot Noir, and one white, Chardonnay.
In Bordeaux there are five major red grapes. They are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet
Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. There
are two main white grapes, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.
We had lunch at Les Marronniers
in Montagne. It was one of the few
restaurants nearby that was open. The
last Sunday in May is Mother’s Day in France, so Les Marronniers was doing a
big business.
We both had just a
salad. Mary’s was a salade de crudités, a straightforward salad
of greens and vegetables.
Mine was la salade Périgourdine, which seemed more interesting to
me. It included thin slices of smoked
duck breast, duck gizzards, and foie gras.
We enjoyed a 50 cl bottle of Bordeaux rosé of Cabernet Franc with lunch, very fresh, lean, light-bodied, and a nice pairing with the salads.
Here’s the view of the main street of Montagne. Pretty quiet on a Sunday afternoon.
Standing in front of Les Marronniers
in Montagne, just on the street you see in the photo above, we can see across
the vineyards to Saint Émilion.
And standing in the same
spot, looking a little to the southeast, we can see the church and rooftops of
Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes, so close it looks like we could just stroll over
there for coffee. About my point above
regarding the vastness of Bordeaux and the number of châteaux, between Montagne
and Saint Émilion and Saint-Christophe-des-Bards, there are easily a dozen or
more châteaux. Every little crossroads,
seemingly in the middle of the countryside, is marked by five or six arrows
pointing to various châteaux.
Dinner that evening was
back at the gite, a simple
preparation of saucisse and vegetables,
easy and inexpensive. We enjoyed this wine,
which is from the estate where we are staying, Château Lys de Maisonneuve. It was nicely aromatic of red and dark fruit, cherries and plums, dark currant, maybe. It had enough age that the tannins had smoothed out pretty well. The fleshiness of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc made it easy to drink.
You see the appellation
on the bottle label says Montagne-Saint Émilion. Montagne is considered a “satellite”
appellation to Saint Émilion. The
general practice is to append Saint Émilion to the name of the nearby village
or commune, Montagne in this case.
That’s our post for
today. Thanks again for reading us. Tomorrow we will go over to the Left Bank
areas of Graves and the Haut Medoc. Check
back for more at Cépage et
Cuisine as we continue our wine, culinary, and cultural
travels in France. In the meantime,
Cheers!
Mary♥Brian
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