lifetime experience | schwingeninswitzerland

Although we could have driven from one Bordeaux winery to another, we did a tour. We did this for several reasons.

I firmly believe that if you are going to drink, for goodness sake don’t drive. I didn’t mind driving across France, but would have hated driving around Bordeaux if it meant missing out on this once in a lifetime experience.
Bordeaux is massive with thousands of wineries. It’s hard to know which ones to visit. We were pleased with both the quality and variety of wineries chosen by our guide in the know.
We planned this road trip days in advance. With such short notice, it would have been difficult to make all the arrangements ourselves.

Jurgen, our guide/ designated driver chose three vastly different wineries for us to visit in Bordeaux. First, we visited Chateau Laniote in St. Emilion. It is a family run winery run by a delightful couple. She’s a oneologist (a wine scientist) and he’s the resident magician and jack of all trades. Their wine was tasty and a good value. I’m always interested in how family businesses operate and wish we could have stayed longer to talk with them. Unfortunately for us, they were busy racking the wine (siphoning it from one container to the next in order to leave the sediment behind). Fortunately for us, we had other lovely vineyards to visit. After we left, our guide told us he was a Baron. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a Baron or Baroness before. I hope as nice and hard-working as these guys.

Our next visit was to Chateau Gruaud Larose (above). We had a nice guide who explained some of the unique things about their winery.

It is located in the St Julian appellation, which is known for producing full-bodied and elegant wines.
They make both a first label (higher quality/more expensive) and second label (which uses grapes from younger vines and other cuvées). The second label is Sarget du Château Gruaud-Larose.

They are state of the art and have embraced technology in their efforts to produce the best wine possible. They have a weather station that is replete with a machine to break up hail, a hail gun…sort of. It is in the distance, near the furthest building in the picture above.
They have a fancy-schmancy grape sorter. It uses high-precision cameras to electronically select only perfect, ripe grapes.

We visited the highly praised Château Pontet-Canet. While Château Gruaud-Larose embraced technology, Château Pontet-Canet returned to traditional methods in their efforts to produce a high quality wine.

Bordeaux is notorious for its adherence to rigid classifications laid out in the 1800’s. Château Pontet-Canet is classified as a Cinquième Crus (fifth growth). Our guide, Jurgen, echoed the main criticism of this rigidity when he explained to us that it meant that a fifth growth level could be better than a second-growth because of how they operate their vineyard.
Even though it is a lowly fifth growth, it is located in the Pauillac area of Bordeaux, across the road from first growth Château Mouton Rothschild Other illustrious neighbors include: Château Lafite and Château Mouton. Some of the world’s most highly respected and expensive wines. Even at several hundred dollars a bottle, people still argue that it is underrated and a terrific value.

Once-derided, this winery’s quality has steadily risen, particularly after its conversion to biodynamics. This 2007 vintage is controversial because it resorted to chemicals to treat oidium and mildew, a decision they now regret. That being said, I tasted it and it was pretty darn good.

They use horses in the vineyards. Horses compact the soils less, and do not damage the vine’s roots like tractors.

They sort grapes by hand, worried that an automated sorter would damage the grapes or crush them unnecessarily early. After the manual sorting, their grapes drop directly into tanks in the floor below.