St. Emilion

We woke up painfully early and left Ming's flat with our now overflowing bags. We arrived at the train station at about 6:45 - so we had 20 minutes to check our bags and make it to the train. We knew that the baggage consignment place opened at 7:00, but sometimes things in France don't open on time. If it opened late, we were screwed. Actually, if anything went wrong, we were screwed. The French staff did not really seem to get our sense of urgency as I quasi-panickedly tried to get my brain into French mode. As I waited for them to officially open so that I could run our bags through the conveyor belt, Laura was checking our train's platform and timing how long it took to run from the baggage consignment place to the platform (useful to have two people). As soon as they would let us, we scanned our bags and carefully threw them into one of the large lockers. This done, they told us that locker was broken so we unloaded everything and reloaded it into another locker. The lockers would only take coins though, and it was a mad race to change a bill to coins and frantically put exact change into the little slot. It was about 7:04 and we SPRINTED out of there and booked it to our train. We made it with literally 60 seconds to spare. Phew. We haven't had to run like that in a while.

Oh yeah, so St. Emilion...let me explain. Bordeaux is known for red wines. The Bordeaux wine region expands well past the actual city of Bordeaux. In the olden days, winemakers from all over the region would ship their wine to Bordeaux, and it would be exported from Bordeaux's ports. Cleverly, Bordeaux is a combination of the words "Abord de l'eaux" or "Close to the waters". This is because there are two rivers that run through Bordeaux. The left bank produces primarily Medoc wine. The right bank is where St. Emilion wine come from. Other wines are produced between the two rivers in a region called "entre deux mers" or "between two seas". Bordeaux had a monopoly on the wine exports from its ports, always making sure to sell out of Bordeaux wines before selling anybody else's wines. St. Emilion is one of the most famous wine making regions. It was founded by a monk (named Emilion) a long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away). Today in St. Emilion, there are 900 chateaux (wineries). St. Emilion is only allowed to produce red wine and call it St. Emilion wine. So, they do produce some white wine, and some other alcohols (similar to cognac), but if it's not red wine it cannot use the St. Emilion "brand". These bottles will say something or other Bordeaux on them, or perhaps the name of one of the appellations bordering the St. Emilion region. But the region of St. Emilion is a defined space that was decided upon a hundred years ago, and only red wines produced in St. Emilion can have the honor of being called a St. Emilion wine. Hope that makes sense.

Now, there are 4 classes of St. Emilion wine. There is plain old St. Emilion wine which is the bottom tier. 400 of the 900 chateaux produce this wine. This wine is still about 3 levels above normal French table wine. Then the next level up is called St. Emilion Grand Cru. The next level up is called St. Emilion Grande Cru Classe. The top tier level is called St. Emilion Premier Grande Cru Classe, and this level has two classes. Class A only includes the top 2 wineries: Ausone and Cheval Blanc. Class B includes 12 wineries. Wine judges test taste the wine every 10 years (last in 2006) to confirm or alter classifications of wines.

So, when we got to St. Emilion though, it was not quite 8 AM yet, and we were walking through clouds. It was so foggy, none of it had lifted yet. There were hardly any other people there because it was so freaking early and we had no clue where to go. We followed our guts and turned right. As we walked, the fog began to lift revealing neat green lines of vineyards for as far as the eye could see, and the sun came up higher and illuminated the leaves and chateaux. It was a gorgeous, silent morning. We soon reached the small town center area of St. Emilion to find, of course, that all shops were still closed. So we gave ourselves a little walking tour on the empty cobble stones streets, enjoying the silence and space. Mid day I was sure this tourist place would be much, much busier.

After walking for about an hour and pretty much covering the town, we found the first open wine shop. The lady was really nice and offered to give us a taste, even though it was not even 9:30 AM. I hadn't had breakfast yet, but that seemed fairly irrelevant; of course we accepted her offer. Once it got to be 9:30, we went back to the tourist office and made a reservation for a tour leaving later in the afternoon at 3:30 and I talked to them in French and asked them some other questions. My French is coming along exceptionally well, I think (by the way). Extremely pleased about this :)

Then we went to a shop called Maison du Vin. There was a table there where you could smell different wine aromas and guess what it was. I wasn't very good at it. I think I liked the beer aroma test in Copenhagen better. We then watched some educational videos on the history of St. Emilion and wine, but we were so tired that sitting in a dark room was causing me to doze off. So we stood up and left to continue meandering.

We found an open shop where Laura got a crepe and I got a quiche lorraine and by this time many of the other wine shops had opened - it was now around 11:30.

From 11:30 to 3:30, pretty much what we did was walk from wine shop to wine shop tasting free sample of wine after free sample of wine. It was fantastic. We must have tried at least 10 if not more. At most shops, we would stop and talk to the people there for a while. Two shops in particular we stayed at for a good 30-45 minutes each. I spoke in French with them and can now more or less talk about wine in French (SWEEEEET!) and they told us all that I wrote up above about the region and the wines and the classifications. We learned so much from these people; it was so cool. And so free!!! Who needs a tour when you can talk to people at the wine shops and learn a ton and have great conversation? And who needs to pay 6 euros for a glass of one wine when you can have free samples of tons of wine?! Seriously! Amazing. Nothing like this anywhere else as far as I know, especially not in the states. It was really fun speaking in French for most of the afternoon and trying so many wines, swirling and smelling, sipping and refilling. My French may or may not have improved over the course of all this... :) I do know that I would always say Bonjour coming into a shop and then they would always speak to me in French, so maybe I actually sounded French?!

When it got close to 3:30, we stopped at a kind of pastry shop - not with the typical tartes, but with other treats I think that are more specific to Bordeaux and/or St. Emilion. I tried something called a cannele which I'd never seen or heard of before today, but it was all over the town. It was 2 euros for a little piece of this thing, but it was pretty dang good. It was kind of cinnamon-y but the inside was rich and creamy and almost like a dry-moist (I know that doesn't make sense) pudding. It was weird and cool and exciting. Yay for new pastries.

Then we regrouped at the tourist office and left on our tour. We walked past the Ausone vineyard (exciting, this is one of the two vineyards that is in the very very top tier of St. Emilion wine makers!) and then to another chateaux called Clos du Madeline. There, we got to walk through the vineyard and learn about how they grow the grapes and see little baby grapes that will be ripe in October. Then we toured the actual winery which was on the same small plot of land and had both oak and ceramic vats. Next was the cellar, where we saw the actual oak barrels (which cost 750 euros EACH) where the vintage 2009 wine is currently maturing. Then we got to taste two different wines produced by the winemaker who owns the chateaux. I am really glad we got to do this because there are so many chateaux here, and each chateaux literally has the grapes right next to the winery and the cellar. All the red wine, it all happens HERE! And I got to see it! Pretty freaking cool. Also, considering how much I've learned about beer over the course of my brewery tour filled life, I am really glad I got a chance to learn so much about wine in such a unique and amazing place so well renowned for it's incredible wines. I totally feel like an educated wine snob now. Awesome.

After the tour we walked back to the train station and I took a much needed power nap while we waited (and on the train back). We had an hour in the Bordeaux station in which we grabbed some quick baguette sandwiches and relaxed until it was time to retriever our bags and go to our train platform.

I asked a conductor outside the train where our car was and she pointed down in one direction. We were looking for car 6. We were by car 15, and the train left in 2 minutes, so we just got on. The train left and finally we get to car 20, which was A) not in the right numerical direction as where the conductor pointed me, and B) the end of the train car line. Problem. We set our bags down and I walked in the opposite direction to see if car 6 was where it logically should be on the other end of the train. however, around car 13 or so I run into a conductor person. I ask him where car 6 is. You want to know what he says? "There is no car 6." What do you mean, there is no car 6? This is the train leaving at 19:47 from Bay 5 headed to Paris Montparnasse, right? "Oui." Showing him my tickets VERY confused I asked again, what do you mean, there is no car 6? And he just says, "This is the wrong train." Sure enough, somehow, this train's number was 5 digits long and entirely different from the 4 digit train number printed on our tickets. I asked him if this would be ... uh... a problem, seeing as to how we were moving and stuff. He looked more amused than anything and told me to just go find a seat somewhere in 2nd class. WHY is this happening to us on our LAST train ride?!!? WHY! We're supposed to be good at this! I mean, thank goodness it's still headed to Paris and we're not getting fined or kicked off, but seriously where the heck is our real train?? So confused.

Once off the train we saw that there was another train connected to the train we were on. This was our train. I waved hello to car 6 on our way out to the metro stop.

We got to our newest host's (Noemie's) flat sometime after midnight and pretty much went straight to bed...have not been sleeping well lately; I am exhausted.

I know we were in Paris like 72 hours ago and this whirlwind trip to Bordeaux was amazing and perfect and beautiful...but I'm still so happy to be back in my city of lights.