Jacques, our host at Château Franc Mayne in Saint Emilion, opens the cellar door and tells us to stay close to him, making sure to count how many we are. The cellar is actually an old, enormous limestone quarry. It’s easy to get lost in here. (He’s supposed to count us when we leave too, but somehow that’s often forgotten at the tasting.)
Already the Romans extracted stones here to build houses, and it continued for hundreds of years. The houses, churches, palaces, monasteries of Bordeaux and Saint Emilion are built with this beautiful limestone. In a corner, the oak barrels hide where the wine is going to rest for a year. Only a small part of the cellar is used for the barrels. It is a large cellar and the château’s production is small.
On our Bordeaux trip, old quarries are mixed with modern and designed cellars that seem to belong in fashion magazines. We taste a lot of wine on our wine tours to Bordeaux but the visual impressions are also important. In the evenings you will enjoy the spectacular city of Bordeaux.
Our Bordeaux wine tour takes place in April and October.
We have written a book about the wines and wine regions of Bordeaux, but it is only available in Swedish for the moment.
