Bordeaux & St Emillion : Wine Country

If you are a wine aficionado, then St Emillion is the place to be. We made a day trip to St Emillion, which was named as the World Heritage site in 1999,for its awe-inspiring vineyards (St Emillion appellation) and lime rock underground monuments. Saint-Emillion was also a stop on the pilgrimage path , that led from northern Europe to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela, the most popular pilgrimage destination for Christians.

Our tour began at Château Dauphine, owned by a businessman. The manager of the vineyard, who was very coy, gave us a tour of the facility, after which we tasted 6 different types of wine. The hangover still lingering, after consuming excessive wine in Bordeaux’s wine festival the previous night, we decided to use the spittoons during the wine tasting session. Almost all the wines were fruity, except for one vintage (I don’t remember which year) which was spicy, Clove probably, with a woody flavor.

We had duck confit, a local specialty, for lunch, in one of the restaurants, recommended by our tour guide, in St Emillion’s City Center. The salty flavor of the duck went perfectly well with the bland, potatoes baked with fat.

The tour guide took us to the underground lime rock monuments, explaining the history of St Emillion. Then we were on our way to the family owned Chateau Haut Veyrac. The owner is the guy in green Shirt (he has green eyes too!). He gave us a tour of his vineyard, with a sense of pride. The glow in his eyes and the zest, with which he gave the tour sold us! Even before drinking the wine, many of us had decided to buy the wine here.

The longevity of the vineyards was what amazed us. The vineyards were 70 yrs old!. They grew merlot and cabernet. The blending of wines is family tradition. He explained that, his grandfather, father and himself worked in concert to come up with a perfect recipe for blending the wine!
Then came the best part, Wine Tasting!. We couldn’t wait to taste the wine. We stepped into the modest home, where the living room also served as wine tasting room. It could fit around 25 people. We all sat down with glasses, and the owner gave a brief description of the wine while he poured wine for all. He loved to serve wine! He told us some inside secrets about wine tasting, most of which was not discussed in the wine tasting course we took the previous day in Bordeaux.

We tasted around 4 different types of wine and decided to buy 1997 vintage, which had complex aromas, called the “bouquet”. It was of common consensus that, the wine was under priced. When venu asked the proud owner about that, he goes “He is aware of the fact that he could sell his wine three times higher than the current price. Its not about money.” he says, “It’s about personal satisfaction”. Very seldom do people do what satisfies them