Wine Travel Archive

Paris, our last day in France before coming back to the USA.
We took a tour boat down the river Seine. We were able to see a lot of interesting sites from the boat but it was a bit cold and still missed much of the audio that I would have liked to capture.

This episode covers our evening and dinner at the Jules Verne on the second floor of the Eiffel tower. We caught many of the dishes that we had but missed a few. The view on Paris was amazing and the meals delicious!

This video starts as we travel from Beaune to Paris. After arriving we grabbed a quick lunch and then took the Cityrama tour of Paris which I wanted to share a bit of. I will apologize in advance for the shaky and poor quality of the video as it was difficult to record from the bus. There is also not much explanation of the views as the only audio available was through a headset. This part ends with some shots of the Louvre from the courtyard.

This is the last of the three videos that make up day 12. It is my personal favorite and highlights our visit to the Damy cooperage (barrel maker). I felt like I was shooting an episode of How It’s Made.

As you will see in the video, much of the work is still done by hand with some help from modern machinery. You can get more information on the process and some higher quality videos at http://damy-cooperage.com/index-gb.htm.

If you missed it, Part 1 covered our tour to the Fallot Mustard Factory and Part 2 covered the tour of the Hospices de Beaune.

The second part covers the tour of the Hospices de Beaune. There are some more images of the town that were shot as we headed back to our car. The architecture is amazing and the story is interesting as well. Click on the video below to see the tour!

Day 12 was a really full day so it had to be split into three videos. This is part 1 which is the shortest of the three and covers our tour to the Fallot Mustard Factory. I love Dijon mustard so was looking forward to it and was not disappointed. The lighting on the tour was very dark so most of it did not turn out.

The three points I found most interesting was where 98% of the mustard seed comes from, how they grind the seeds, the same method used for hundreds of years, and how the mustard gets it’s characteristic hot flavor.

Last minute change in plans so had to rush to catch up with the grape pickers as you will see in the first scene. Our guide was Guillaume Esmery. Unfortunately some of what he says is difficult to hear due to the wind which always comes through louder than voices. Since the video was so long for this day, I had to split it into two parts. The first one is from time in the vineyards and the second one is from the tour of Maison Drouhin.

PART 1

PART 2

Included are some images from a visit to the market in Chagny followed by images captured during a bicycle ride in the vineyards. Finally there are some scenes shot during our dinner at Le Vieux Vigneron in Chagny.

This video starts with some scenes from the market in Beaune and then shows scenes from around the city as we did some additional sightseeing. For some information on the city see the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.beaune

Following the transition are some images from the Château du Clos-de-Vougeot where we visited and saw some grape pickers at work in the vineyards there. There was no information available in English so we just enjoyed the historic building.

The video closes with images looking back on Château du Clos-de-Vougeot as we leave.

Much of what we learned was discussed during our on-site visit to some Vineyards. As you will hear, the wind was pretty significance so none of the dialogue explaining what we were looking at is audible. One of the essential points was how the slope of the land helps determine the quality of the grapes. The vines in the “plains,” or level areas, are used to create the regional wines, the bottom and top of the slopes are where the Premier and Village Branded wines come from and the steep mid part of the slope produces the cream of the crop known as the Grand Crus.

Our lunch and tasting was with Thibault Garin from Cottin Frères a wine distributor in Nuits-Saint George.

Although I say on the video that it is day 6, it was actually day 7.

This was mostly a travel day but when we got to Burgundy (or Bourgogne as they spell it here) we were still able to squeeze in a tour of another winery and a four course meal with sampling of 14 wines, what they call La Grande Dégustation.

Play the video below to watch our 5th day in Bordeaux.

Wine tastings on the left bank and visits of Châteaux.
We visited Phelan Ségur and Château Teynac

 

 
Please play the video below and enjoy our fourth day in France.

Shows a day trip into the city of Bordeaux for a wine tasting class at the CIVB (Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux or the Interprofessional Council for the Wine of Bordeaux). We were unable to video during ths class but got some pictures of the CIVB lobby.

Next was visit to Planet Bordeaux (http://www.planete-bordeaux.net/) which is an educational center that provides an overview of the whole process from grapes to wine in the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Superieur Appellations: seasons, terroirs, landscapes, patrimony, winegrowing techniques, fermentations, aromas, materials (wood, glass, cork) and a childrens corner. Unfortunately all the exhibits were in darkened rooms and almost all were some form of video presentation which could not be recorded.

This trip was to be about the grape harvest. However, our itinerary has been turned on its head. Apparently, someone forgot to advise Mother Nature of the itinerary and she made her own. In a nutshell, this weekend we were to help with the grape harvesting, which is called vandange, and learn about life and work at the vineyard. Due to an unusually cool and wet summer the grapes are not ready to be picked yet and it does not appear they will be ready for another week or two.

Therefore, after spending some time in the morning trying to adjust to the time difference, we went to see Saint Émilion . This is one of the towns in France which an appellation is named after. There will be more about this later, but briefly an appellation is a small agricultural region that has a similar micro climate and is named after the largest town or village in the area. In addition to Saint-Émilion Grand Cru there are four satellite appellations that share the Saint Émilion name.

The Romans planted vineyards in what was to become Saint-Émilion as early as the 2nd century AD.

One of the highlights in touring the town was when we found ourselves in a wine cave. There are many caves in the limestone that creates the great hill on which the town stands. The caves provide inexpensive climate control for the aging and storing of wine. In this region their temperature stays relatively constant at about 13.0 °C or 55 °F with humidity around 80%. The oldest vintage in this particular cave was from 1967

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