Saint-Emilion
Saint-Emilion is the gem of the Bordeaux region, both for the small town itself and the wines that are produced in the region.
The town is located about an hours drive from the city of Bordeaux, close to the town of Libourne.
The vineyards that surround the village expand outward for kilometers on end, which makes for a scenic drive once you get off the highway and begin to approach the city.
We were there at the tail end of autumn when the grape leaves were changing color and starting to fall from the vines. To be honest, if we were there any later in the year I don't think that there would have been any leaves left at all.
Luckily though, not all of the leaves had fallen so the landscape in some areas still shown golden in the morning sunlight.
Deep shades of orange, yellow and red make the fall season a particularly nice time to visit any vineyard.
We arrived fairly early, around 10:00am. At that point the town felt like it was just starting to wake up. It rapidly got more and more busy by the minute though. It's a pretty big tourist destination for the Bordeaux region.
We stopped for a coffee in the main plaza Square before heading out to explore.
In 1998, eight villages and the surrounding vineyards that make up the district of Saint-Emilion were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The area was declared a "cultural landscape" and was recognized as having exceptional character and universal importance, something you can see when walking through it narrow cobblestone streets.
Something that many people do not know is that Macarons were originally invented in Saint-Emilion by nuns back in the 17th century. These Macarons known as Véritables Macarons de Saint Emilion, which means “the real macarons of Saint Emilion,” are quite different than the brightly colored sandwhiches that you see in Paris, made famous by Laudurée.
Saint-Emilion's are small simple almond wafers made with sugar, egg whites and almond flour. They are a specialty of the town next to wine and taste strongly of almond flavor. They are delicious and only a small fraction of the price of Ladurée macarons.
We bought a box of 12 for 6.00 euros which is just a little over the price of two Ladurée cookies. They're not as fancy but certainly more bang for your buck.
We wondered the streets for a while checking out the old buildings and admiring the architecture of the town.
I think I took about a dozen pictures of the tower in the photo below.
It didn't matter where we were standing, it always seemed to be in view.
There it is again. I think I covered all of it's angles.
And here is another one.
The town is full of wine shops and caves and we originally figured it would be an awesome village to do some wine tasting. The shops did do tastings, but to be honest, they were so fancy that we were too intimidated to go into any of them with the dog.
Instead we bought a glass of wine and went to drink it in the backyard of a 14th century Abbey.
This place was neat in that they were selling pic-nic lunches consisting of wine, breads, cheeses, jams and charcuterie. You could choose what you wanted and they packed it up for you in a pic-nic basket to go outside with.
We generally don't eat lunch on our trips because we do a big breakfast in the morning that often ties us over until supper in the evening. We often snack along the way though. Chips and wine! It's a good combination.
It could have been the setting and the moment but this glass of wine was actually one of the best wines that I've tried in France, excluding the time that we ate a two star Michelin restaurant. I actually ended up finding the bottle in the main wine boutique in town. Its a different year and I don't know if it's the Chateau's generic wine or their superior or if they even have distinctions like that, but I'm hoping it's as good as when I had it at the Abbey.
How much do people generally spend on wine per bottle? Is anyone brave enough to tell me? For me anything over 12 euros is either a gift for someone else or reserved for special occasions. This bottle was 27€ so it will be saved for something special.
While walking the streets we stumbled upon this narrow alleyway by chance and found ourselves in a really neat spot.
It was another old Abbey courtyard and was probably the most beautiful spot in the village aside from the surrounding vineyards.
The walls were painted with a really intricate and colorful mural depicting what I imagine are scenes from the Bible.
From there we made our way around the periphery of the city towards the grapevines.
There were a lot of viewpoints along the way of the town and the surrounding area.
A dirt path eventually turned into a paved road...
...both of which were right next to the vines.
We saw these parsimmons growing in a random tree along the way. I've never seen them any place other than a grocery store or market.
The last thing that we did that day was stop in at the family run Coutet winery located just outside the town of Saint-Emilion.
We basicslly chose it randomly from online reviews right before getting into our car to head out. Despite us showing up unannounced they were super accommodating. They allowed us to join a tour that started shortly after our arrival and they didn't even charge us the fee because it was in French and we only speak and understand a little of the language.
We showed our appreciation by buying a case of their Rouge Clair (which is apparently NOT a Rosé) and a bottle of their Grand Cru, which was really excellent.
At that point we had enough wine to cover my wife's birthday, Christmas, my birthday...etc so we said goodbye to the vineyards and headed back to our hotel in Bordeaux.
