Bordeaux = Wine

We arrived in Bordeaux in Southern France at about 9pm at night and pretty much everything looked the same, luckily we had booked a really amazing house (total fluke) on AirBnB and the French room mates we had for our 3 day stay were amazing - they love living in Bordeaux and went above and beyond to make sure we loved it too!

Bordeaux is a city full of beautiful gothic style architecture and UNESCO buildings. We spent our first morning wandering around (in the rain AGAIN) and took at look at St Michel's Church, Saint Eloi (Grosse Cloche - the Big Bell) and the Monument aux Girondins. We walked along the Bordeaux Quays, which despite the rain was full of runners - nothing will stop this breed of people!

Many of the streets in Bordeaux are cobblestone but just when you think you're safe to walk wherever you please cars suddenly seem to drive through them!

Michael was my model for the day!

Above is the Port of the Moon, probably Bordeaux's most photographed building, the reflecting pool in front of it is supposed to show a reflection of the building (which it didn't while we were there because it was way too windy) and is supposed to look amazing at night.

The most important part of our trip to Bordeaux was the wine.

We decided to go on a half day wine tour - complete with wine enthusiasts who were very willing to talk in great depth about the ways in which wine can be produced!

First stop was Chateau Gravas, east of Bordeaux, a small family owned winery that is supposedly famous for its sweet white wine.

The owner was really sweet and came out to meet us and explain how the wine at her winery is produced, I am going to be honest and confess that most of it went straight over my head but I did learn that the grapes that grow a kind of mould on them are the ones they use to produce their wine - sounds disgusting right?

Having said that the wine was amazing, we got to taste two different kinds of sweet white wine (in Bordeaux they name the wine based on the region it is produced rather than the kind of wine it is) but not before swirling it around and smelling it a million times!

Our next stop was Chateaux Carbonnieux, also east of Bordeaux, this winery was renound for producing classified wines (which, from what I understood, meant award winning and well respected wines) that were both red and white. Oh but the best part is that since 1820 this Chateau has been owned by the PERRIN FAMILY!

Picured above are some of the many wines produced by the Perrin family of Bordeaux that we were able to sample - these too tasted amazing! We wanted to buy a Perrin wine to take home but it seemed like too much effort to carry it around Europe for 3 months (and not drink it haha!)

 

Michael and I sampling the Perrin family's wine!

This Chateau was much bigger than the last one, the picture below on the left shows the courtyard of the Chateau and the Perrin family live in the area behind me with the white windows! The other photos are of the millions of wine barrels they have (filled with wine) as well as the huge vats to store the wine (and allow it to ferment - they have temperature gagues everywhere to ensure it is at optimal temperature).

As you can see Michael and I were pretty excited at the prospect of rooms filled with giant barrels of wine!

We finished our time in France by visiting the most amazing chocolate shop I have ever visited in my life! I was finally able to buy some macarons (everywhere always seemed to be closed when I was looking for them) and some amazing French chocolates - I could have bought the whole place really!

We really enjoyed Bordeaux, it was our last stop in France before we moved onto Spain!