Our trip with Paul & Angie continued from San Sebastian, Spain to Saint Emilion, France which is in the Bordeaux wine region. We drove about 2 1/2 hours to get there and stayed from October 19th-21st. When we arrived we were immediately in love with the tiny mid-evil village of
Saint-Emilion.
Saint-Emilion.
We had reserved to stay at an apartment rental owned by a French couple who turned out to be really sweet and their place was amazing, so cozy and quaint...
Marilyn (the wife) even made us some delicious blackberry jam and got Angie and I introduced to caneles. These are little French pastries with a soft custard like center with a caramelized chewy outside. (In the glass dish above)
The husband didn't speak a word of English but went with Brian and Paul back to the car where we had originally parked to help bring the car back in front of our place. Paul was put to the test of parallel parking into the smallest parking place but eventually succeed!
Once settled in we quickly found a bakery to get a baguette, cheese and wine at a local wine shop in order to toast to our first glasses in French wine country...
The view out our back window, things were so quiet you could hear the neighbor whistling, so calm and peaceful...
After relaxing awhile we decided it was time to walk around and do some wine tasting at some wine shops nearby. Saint-Emilion is all cobble stones and many streets are steep like this one...
Wasn't long before we found our first shop to wander into and try some tastings.
The guys were pretending to be all proper and fancy that is the reason for the goofy smiles.
Empty glasses...
Below is the next wine shop we went too. They let us try many types while telling us about the wine. We were planning to ship some wine back home to the States and to London but first we were just getting an idea of what we liked, different price ranges, etc. We took many picture of bottles to remember which was which and luckily Angie turned into an excellent note taker for all of us as well.
Charles was working this particular store (in the picture above) He brought us into the cellar downstairs which was pretty awesome and before you know it he had Angie holding a massive bottle of wine for this picture. Good thing she didn't drop it because it was worth a pretty penny!
As it got darker outside and the stone buildings lit up things became even more pretty...
That night we had a delicious French meal, with of course more wine.
Next morning, sitting in our window before heading out...
Another lovely day...
Vineyards in the distance...
Below is the Chateau Guadet vineyards...
We had a tour in the afternoon set up with the winemaker of Chateau Guadet which was located not far from the vineyard actually in his backyard.
Heading down into the huge cave cellar underground...
It was so big down there with many different rooms, really hard to get picture to show what it was really like though. Pretty impressive with a lot of wine being stored as well as some very very old bottles.
At the end of course we got to taste some wine :)
Later that evening we went back to the wine shop that we had been at the previous night for a scheduled tasting this time. After tasting quite a bit more wine we made our final purchases of what to ship! We each even bought a special bottle to hold onto for many years in order to drink later on for a special occasion.
Then since the sun was going down we decided to go watch...
First time watching a sunset over a vineyard...
Pretty beautiful.
Later at dinner we had a 6 course "surprise menu" tasting meal...it included various fish, duck and meat dishes.
The next morning we toured Chateau Fonplegade. On the way there was this beautiful leave covered wall...
Below is the Chateau in the distance which we were walking towards.
The property itself and the inside was gorgeous...
We had a very small tour, just us and 2 others while we learned about the wine making process.
and how the wines are aged and stored...
And then of course there was tasting...
We really enjoyed all the wines we tried and even joined a quarterly wine club to split with Paul and Angie to ship to the States. After the trip we sure are going to have lots of wine waiting for us when we move home! :)
The harvest time was just a couple weeks before we were there but we still were able to spot a few grapes...
Such a great way to spend our final day in Saint Emilion
Next we had lunch and snapped a few last pictures before we left later in the afternoon to drive back to Bordeaux and fly back to London.
Sad saying goodbye to our cozy french apartment...
We will always remember this trip and will have a whole new appreciation for French wine!
