Day one Bordeaux - Saint-Emilion

Although we landed at Bordeaux-Merignac airport in Nouvelle-Aquitaine on Sunday evening and had late dinner in front of the Cathedral in Bordeaux city, I want to use day one for this blogpost.

Saint-Emilion

Early Monday morning we had breakfast watching the beautiful sunrise over the mist in the castle´s wineyard 

The hotel Les Secret Chateau Pey la Tour was not the best hotel we have visited, but an ok place for sleeping and having food. The wineyard will be covered later.

The bus this morning took us to the old city Saint-Emilion with a history back to prehistoric times. The city walls are seen behind me from ab. 8th century.

The first wineyards in the area can be dated back to 2nd century, but I believe the wineyard behind my wife may not be older than a hundred years.

 The center of the town are located below the tower of the cathedral which is on top of the old church caves where no photos were alowed due to private ownership.

Down to the city square and market place (including the entrence to the caves) the narrow streets are steep and must be very dangerous to enter during rain days.

Futher down (the cathedral spire in the background) many nice narrow streets are filled with restaurants, wine- and art craft shops.

The most typical shop in Saint-Emilion is a wineshop. The most expencive bottle we found had a price of 1350 Euros, but we got a great Grand Cru wine priced to 30 Euro.

After a lunch back at our hotel we once more entered the bus to be transportet to Chateau Haute Sarpe for dinner.

Our host and the chef for the Entrecote BBQ dinner gave us a great presentation of the estate (established in 1750), the wine development process and the background for the family responsible after the entrepeneur Joseph Janoueix bought the estate in 1934.

Merlot is the most used grape in the chateau, but Cabernet Sauvignon and other types are also included in the production.

Visiting Chateau Haut-Sarpe was truly a pleasure from beginning to end.