June 3 - Pauillac, Margaux and fancy-schmancy wine
Today we got up at a totally uncivilized hour (thanks again Min)! to fight through rush hour traffic going into Bordeaux, just to come out on the other side and drive another hour to some of the best wine regions of France. We had made reservations earlier at Chateau Mouton-Rothschild (a wine chateau so prestigious that even I kind of recognized the name) to tour the vineyard and chateau. Get this, the price of a tour was 5 euro, the price of a tour and degustation (French for wine-tasting) was 23 Euro!!! Of course, each sip of Mouton-Rothschild wine probably cost 5E each, but still!!! We'd rather spend that money on a whole bottle of wine. So we skipped out on the wine tasting (which would have been at 9:30 am anyway and probably would've made us puke) and just did the tour instead. I have to say, they really capitalized on the prestige of the name - they weren't doing much except selling their own branding and expounding on their family history. The chateau itself was nothing special architecturally, so that was disappointing - and we didn't see much on the tour except a video on the family's rise to vineyard fame, some barrels, some grape vines, and the Mouton-Rothschild museum which was basically the family's collection of fine art pieces over the years. Considering that we saw way better collections of art in real museums, I don't know why they wasted our time. I'm making the whole thing sound worse than it was - it was neat to see the insides and we gained a little insight into the rankings of the wines, but it wasn't exciting. Or maybe we were just tired....
So apparently, the classifications of wine in the Medoc region (consisting of Pauillac, Margaux and the surrounding region north and west of the city of Bordeaux) are roughly as follows:
1. Premier Grand Cru Classe (aka "First Growth")
2. Grand Cru Classes - second, third, fourth and fifth
3. Cru Bourgeois
4. Cru Classe
I found a high-level summary at the following website, for those who are interested. Apparently, the classification system for the wines of the Médoc dates back to 1855. 61 estates are ranked from "1st Growth" (Premier Grand Cru Classé) to "5th Growth". This classification system is restricted to Medoc region, so for example, St. Emilion, where we were staying, has many fine wines but their "Grand Cru Classes" is of the St. Emilion appellation, which is totally different. So a Premier Grand Cru Classe of Pauillac may not be "better" than a Cru Classe or Grand Cru Classe of St. Emilion. The only non-Médoc wine included in the Medoc category classification is Ch. Haut Brion in Pessac-Léognan.
http://www.barriere-freres.com/gb/gc/classification/systemcl.htm
Confused yet? So were we!! It took about 4 wine tours and degustation before we got somewhat sufficient answers. Interestingly, way back in 1855 when they decided which vineyards were what classification, there have really been no changes except for Mouton-Rothschild - to promote it from Grand Cru Classe to Premier Grand Cru Classe in the 1970s I believe. The tour guides told us this was because many factors go into deciding what category a vineyard falls into, including soil conditions, location, height above sea-level, dryness and humidity - and these generally don't change even over hundreds of years. So if you're not a Premier Grand Cru Classe in 1855, you likely never will be.
Anyway, Min and I got suckered into buying "souvenirs" from Mouton-Rothschild - I got a crystal stopper like the ones they have on the top of the wine barrels, and we both bought bottles of 1997 Sauterne wine. Sauterne wine is very sweet wine - I think it's like a late-harvest wine here, not quite dessert wine but more of an apperitif-style wine (very good with foie gras apparently). It was on "sale" at Mouton-Rothschild for only 16E, which should have made us suspicious but we were swept away in a wine-buying frenzy. Min got two bottles but I restrained myself to one. Turns out later that was a mistake - 1997 was not a good year for Sauternes, according to a wine shop owner we met later. Oops. But like we know enough about wines to tell the difference!! As Min said, even if it's a bad wine, we wouldn't know it, we only care about sweetness, so we'll probably like it anyway!
After Mouton we grabbed a quick lunch and tried to find vineyards that would let us do free (or cheap) wine tastings. We did find a chateau that had free degustation - I forgot the name of it now, it wasn't Premier Grand Cru Classe though. I didn't like the wines there - Min didn't either, and we didn't buy any.
When we called around for degustation reservations, we lucked out on this one chateau that had an English tour for FREE at 5 pm. To pass the time, we went to Moulin de la Tour, another chateau but this was not even Cru Bourgeois, I don't think. The owner was very nice to us and talked a lot to Minora about everything from wine to multiculturalism in France, to immigration, to French history...I didn't get it all, he spoke French. All I know is, right before Minora bought a bottle of wine from him, I saw a cockroach running across the table. The man brushed it off - I can't remember if he killed it. So now Min has a bottle of cockroach wine. Yum.
Our final chateau of the day was Chateau Pichon-Longueville, a Grand Cru Classe (I think their highest ranking was second growth) - and it was the best wine tour I've ever been on! First of all, the chateau itself was amazing looking. Second, they were SO thorough! The guide spoke really good English for a French girl, and was super nice and answered all our questions. They showed us everything, including the barrels and stainless steel vats where they process the wine, and even the production line for bottling! If we had come earlier in the day we would have even been able to see the bottling at work. It finished off with a degustation of 3 of their wines, which were better than the other wines we tried but still not in my taste - apparently the Medoc region wine is more tannic (sp?) and bitter than the St. Emilion region wines. I totally recommend this chateau for people to see - best tour ever!!!
Side note - all of the vineyards have beautiful roses planted in front of the grape vines. This is just tradition now, but in the past, the roses were used to detect plant diseases that might attack the grapes, since the roses were more sensitive to disease and would die first. Another tidbit we learned from the Pichon-Longueville tour guide. Here were their vineyards.
After Pichon-Longueville, we drove back to Margaux to try and find a wine store that sold wines from multiple appellations and multiple chateaux. We found a great little store called L'avant Garde which unfortunately didn't have degustation but the owner was a really nice Australian guy and he helped us a bit. Of course by then, Min had already bought something like 4 bottles of wine and I had 1, and we were struggling to think how on earth we were going to carry all that stuff back to Lille with us on the train. That store was also where we found out that the Sauterne we bought was probably no good. So I ended up buying one bottle of really good Sauterne wine (per the Australian guy), and Min got nothing. Then we wandered around the streets of Margaux trying to find a restaurant still open at that late hour. The food was only so-so but it was worth staying late because we saw the most amazing sunset that night driving home.
So a long and tiring day...but v. interesting and educational. Who would have thought wine was so complicated!!
So apparently, the classifications of wine in the Medoc region (consisting of Pauillac, Margaux and the surrounding region north and west of the city of Bordeaux) are roughly as follows:
1. Premier Grand Cru Classe (aka "First Growth")
2. Grand Cru Classes - second, third, fourth and fifth
3. Cru Bourgeois
4. Cru Classe
I found a high-level summary at the following website, for those who are interested. Apparently, the classification system for the wines of the Médoc dates back to 1855. 61 estates are ranked from "1st Growth" (Premier Grand Cru Classé) to "5th Growth". This classification system is restricted to Medoc region, so for example, St. Emilion, where we were staying, has many fine wines but their "Grand Cru Classes" is of the St. Emilion appellation, which is totally different. So a Premier Grand Cru Classe of Pauillac may not be "better" than a Cru Classe or Grand Cru Classe of St. Emilion. The only non-Médoc wine included in the Medoc category classification is Ch. Haut Brion in Pessac-Léognan.
http://www.barriere-freres.com/gb/gc/classification/systemcl.htm
Confused yet? So were we!! It took about 4 wine tours and degustation before we got somewhat sufficient answers. Interestingly, way back in 1855 when they decided which vineyards were what classification, there have really been no changes except for Mouton-Rothschild - to promote it from Grand Cru Classe to Premier Grand Cru Classe in the 1970s I believe. The tour guides told us this was because many factors go into deciding what category a vineyard falls into, including soil conditions, location, height above sea-level, dryness and humidity - and these generally don't change even over hundreds of years. So if you're not a Premier Grand Cru Classe in 1855, you likely never will be.
Anyway, Min and I got suckered into buying "souvenirs" from Mouton-Rothschild - I got a crystal stopper like the ones they have on the top of the wine barrels, and we both bought bottles of 1997 Sauterne wine. Sauterne wine is very sweet wine - I think it's like a late-harvest wine here, not quite dessert wine but more of an apperitif-style wine (very good with foie gras apparently). It was on "sale" at Mouton-Rothschild for only 16E, which should have made us suspicious but we were swept away in a wine-buying frenzy. Min got two bottles but I restrained myself to one. Turns out later that was a mistake - 1997 was not a good year for Sauternes, according to a wine shop owner we met later. Oops. But like we know enough about wines to tell the difference!! As Min said, even if it's a bad wine, we wouldn't know it, we only care about sweetness, so we'll probably like it anyway!
After Mouton we grabbed a quick lunch and tried to find vineyards that would let us do free (or cheap) wine tastings. We did find a chateau that had free degustation - I forgot the name of it now, it wasn't Premier Grand Cru Classe though. I didn't like the wines there - Min didn't either, and we didn't buy any.
When we called around for degustation reservations, we lucked out on this one chateau that had an English tour for FREE at 5 pm. To pass the time, we went to Moulin de la Tour, another chateau but this was not even Cru Bourgeois, I don't think. The owner was very nice to us and talked a lot to Minora about everything from wine to multiculturalism in France, to immigration, to French history...I didn't get it all, he spoke French. All I know is, right before Minora bought a bottle of wine from him, I saw a cockroach running across the table. The man brushed it off - I can't remember if he killed it. So now Min has a bottle of cockroach wine. Yum.
Our final chateau of the day was Chateau Pichon-Longueville, a Grand Cru Classe (I think their highest ranking was second growth) - and it was the best wine tour I've ever been on! First of all, the chateau itself was amazing looking. Second, they were SO thorough! The guide spoke really good English for a French girl, and was super nice and answered all our questions. They showed us everything, including the barrels and stainless steel vats where they process the wine, and even the production line for bottling! If we had come earlier in the day we would have even been able to see the bottling at work. It finished off with a degustation of 3 of their wines, which were better than the other wines we tried but still not in my taste - apparently the Medoc region wine is more tannic (sp?) and bitter than the St. Emilion region wines. I totally recommend this chateau for people to see - best tour ever!!!
Side note - all of the vineyards have beautiful roses planted in front of the grape vines. This is just tradition now, but in the past, the roses were used to detect plant diseases that might attack the grapes, since the roses were more sensitive to disease and would die first. Another tidbit we learned from the Pichon-Longueville tour guide. Here were their vineyards.
After Pichon-Longueville, we drove back to Margaux to try and find a wine store that sold wines from multiple appellations and multiple chateaux. We found a great little store called L'avant Garde which unfortunately didn't have degustation but the owner was a really nice Australian guy and he helped us a bit. Of course by then, Min had already bought something like 4 bottles of wine and I had 1, and we were struggling to think how on earth we were going to carry all that stuff back to Lille with us on the train. That store was also where we found out that the Sauterne we bought was probably no good. So I ended up buying one bottle of really good Sauterne wine (per the Australian guy), and Min got nothing. Then we wandered around the streets of Margaux trying to find a restaurant still open at that late hour. The food was only so-so but it was worth staying late because we saw the most amazing sunset that night driving home.
So a long and tiring day...but v. interesting and educational. Who would have thought wine was so complicated!!
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