Wine country

Bordeaux is on the Gironde River and is located 70 kilometers up river from the Atlantic. We docked right downtown. Amazingly enough this river has a huge tide of 5 meters so every 6 hours our ship was going up and down vis-a-vis the land.

Most of the buildings in old Bordeaux were built in the 18th century and they all tend to look alike with 4 Story sandstone structures withr rectangular windows. It is a really inviting beautiful city which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Of course the Bordeaux area is known for its Vineyards and wineries. Anyone who has a House and produced approved appellation wine is called a Chateau. There are over 6,000 of them in the Bordeaux area. One day we traveled about 1 hour North of the city of Bordeaux to the Medoc area. We visited the famous Chateau Margaux and went to the Chateau Paloumey for a wine tasting presentation. It was a great learning experience. Franklin, you would have loved it here. By chance the head sommelier was with us and agreed with us that the wine of this small Chateau was mediocre to poor.

Chateau Margaux

In this area the best wines are gorwn in Sandy, gravel soil. The individual vines can live up to 50 -60 years. Once a new vine is a year or two old, irrigation is prohibited by law.

written by  rcodel on June 3, 2011 from Bordeaux, France
from the travel blog: World Cruise - 2011
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