My wife and I will be in Bordeaux area for 6 days in April. I would love to know your thoughts on the following. We love smaller wineries who’s wines you can’t necessarily find easily in the United States. I love having those personal connections to the people who are growing and making the wine. But we also love beautiful estates and the large winery experience. In a nutshell, we just love unique, amazing wine experiences
What is your favorite Left Bank winery visit?
What is your favorite Right Bank winery visit?
What is your favorite Sauternes area winery visit?
What is your favorite restaurant in the area?
We will be staying near the new Wine Museum in Bordeaux at an Airbnb and we will have a car to travel. Thank you so much for your suggestions!
I suggest you hire a guide… most of the ‘favorites’ are probably difficult to schedule an appointment?
fav LB: Margaux, P.Baron
fav RB: all are decent but i’m a lb fan.
fav Sauterne: de Fargues
fav restaurant: grocery store, and cook at air bnb… or the restaurant on the roof in the middle of st emilion (next to cheval b).
fav LB: Margaux, P.Baron
fav RB: all are decent but i’m a lb fan.
fav Sauterne: de Fargues
fav restaurant: grocery store, and cook at air bnb… or the restaurant on the roof in the middle of st emilion (next to cheval b).
We used him for two days during our visit to Bordeaux. He came highly recommended by this group - and everyone was correct. You can email Henri and arrange your time with him. It is well worth it.
I’ll endorse M. Challeau, as well–he did a fine job for us during the two days for which we engaged him last spring. Our favorite sticky visit was to Climens. We opted for the priciest tasting, which was very much worth the extra cost, I thought. If you’re not locked in on your accommodations, you might consider a couple nights at the Clos de la Barbanne, a wonderful, upscale vineyard chambre d’hôte not far from St. Emilion. The charming couple who run it are extremely helpful and, having lived in the US for a number of years, speak excellent English. The wine they make is quite nice. As to restaurants in the Bordeaux area, the one at Troplong Mondot was outstanding, as was La Grande Maison de Bernard Magrez, the Gagnaire one in the city.
We had a marvelous meal at Restaurant Akashi in Bordeaux. Owned by a Japanese couple — very, very small. He cooked - she served. Fine classic French with Japanese fusion. Their website says they moved to 45 rue du Loup.
I didn’t hire a guide the last time I was there on a hurried 2-night visit. But was able to make online/email appointments at Ch. Haut-Brion, La Conseillante and Vieux Chateau Certan. Enjoyed all visits, with the HB being much more formal than the family-directed ones at Pomerol.
edited: Driving during rush hour in and round the city was a PITA, though.
Any recommendations for lunch and dinner in Saint Emilion? We are having dinner at Troplong Mondot one night and would be interested in something that might be a contrast in terms of cuisine.
My favorite meal in Bordeaux ended up being Le Bouchon Bordelais. L’Univerre is a great place to drink wine (Burgundy and Champagne in particular) but I didn’t care for the food.
The city of Bordeaux is beautiful and fun place to spend a few days. I was really glad to have been there and would return.
Our dinner at Troplong Mondot’s restaurant was one of the best of our September trip, including other 1 and 3 star Michelin restaurants in France and Spain. Simply perfect - and we found their wine list to be fairly reasonable for a Michelin restaurant. Of course we had the Troplong Mondot!
We decided to skip the new wine museum based upon mxed reviews. We’ve been to Bordeaux many times since the early 90s and have always been able to set up appts without a guide. We typically stay on the left bank - at either Cordelian Bages or Les Sources de Caudlie. We’ve stayed on property as described in the attached thread. If you have a car, we’ve enjoyed driving and exploring. A few thoughts:
What is your favorite Left Bank winery visit? Lafite Rothschild (probably my favorite “cellar”), Leoville Barton, Cos d’Estournel (amazing experience with lunch, etc.), Lascombes, Smith Haut Laftite - fsavorites because of the experiences of the winemaker, owner, or guide we had for the visit. For a smaller winery, we enjoyed our visit at Chateau Poujeaux in Moulis. One of our worst visits was a private tour at Margaux.
What is your favorite Right Bank winery visit? Troplong Mondot - caveat that we spend most of our tim eon the left bank
What is your favorite Sauternes area winery visit? While I loved the history and prestige of d’Yquem, my favorite Sauterne visits were at Climens (Barsac) and Raymond Lafon (Sauternes). At Climens, we were treated to a very nice tasting of all of their wines accompanied by foie gras on toast points. At the end of the visit, they brought out the 1967 to taste and when I told them it was my birth year they gave me the bottle to take home. At Raymond Lafon, we had a tasting and tour that included going into the vineyards and picking grapes with some noble rot (it was late Nov) and then a since tasting again with foie gras with the Mesliers sitting around a table at the winery and they signed all of the bottles we purchased there. It sits just next to d’Yquem and shares its borders. For both of these visits, we were made to feel more like family than visitors.
What is your favorite restaurant in the area? Left bank - our favorites include Cordelian Bages and the bistro at Les Sources de Caudalie. Right bank - Les Pedrix de Troplong Mondot. Les Terasses Rouges (at Chateau Dominique) has amazing views overlooking Cheval Blanc and other vineyards near Pomerol, there portions are very large and can be split. I enjoyed their appetizers more than the main courses. Sauternes - We had lunch at Claude Darroze in Langon and sampled the armagnacs - be careful to book a late afternoon appt if any as it’s difficult to leave the restaurant timely!
Howard - Curious why you refer to it as a ‘new age tour’? The only difference from this visit and the others really was the drive out into the vineyard in a golf cart (on a very cold and wet day in my case).
A must is to have some caneles at Bailladran. There are several locations in Bordeaux but we went to the one very near the Opera. By far the best I’ve had, including several batches I’ve made from an old southwestern French recipe and all the ones at restaurants served for petits fours.
Obviously, they are very into biodynamics, which is not why I made the comment. But, when they were showing us the vineyards, they pointed out that they worked the vineyards with farm animals and not tractors. Again, not unusual, a number of wineries believe that tractors compact the land too much and that animals are thus gentler on the vineyard. However, in all my time visiting vineyards, they were the first to tout an advantage of using farm animals was that somehow the animals and vines communicated with each other and the presence of the animals made the vines happier. There were a number of other “new age” type comments during our tour but that is the one I really remember.
Now, I don’t think this makes them bad or anything. In fact, often I think that great wine is made by passionate people and that it sometimes almost doesn’t matter the form the passion takes. But, being at Pontet Canet was a different experience for me, one that I found kind of entertaining.
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