Bordeaux, Part Deux

Sorry about that. I do hate to leave you hanging, but that last post was getting a little bit long, and my darling and ever-practical engineer husband said, "Why don't you just break it into two separate posts?" After four hours of photo editing and writing, that had not once occurred to me. See, this is why he and I are married, and why we do it so well.

So after we left Le Cellier de St. Emilion, we piled back into the van and Brise drove us to Chateau Ambe Tour Pourret. Important note: a chateau in Bordeaux means something entirely different than in the Loire Valley. See, around here, a "chateau" means a big-ass castle. In the Bordeaux wine area, it simply means a wine-producing estate.

Here are some photos. As per normal, they don't do it justice. There were vineyards, vineyards everywhere. I could have stayed there forever, waking up to those vines under those blue skies. I also really want to try my hand at grape picking sometime, and maybe even grape stomping. It just sounds fun...for a little while, anyway.

The entrance to the winery

The interior courtyard

The vineyards. Grow, little grapes, grow...make us some wine!

Panoramic from B's camera

At Ambe Tour Pourret, we were given a brief vineyard and winery tour, and then we had our second tasting of the day. This time we tried four wines paired with cheeses. This tasting wasn't as informative or impressive as about the one with Bruno back in St. Emilion, but then, have you ever seen either of us complain about a wine tasting? Exactly.

Here are the four wines we tasted. I did not like the first one at all, but I do not do rose. And I still can't figure out why these are sideways, too. They were perfectly upright on my phone and computer. Technology. Meh.

That concluded our wine tour. Brise drove us back to Bordeaux, and we had lunch at La Creperie d'Angele. This was one of those good/bad ideas. We split a bottle of wine and a side salad, we each ordered a savory galette, and we each got a dessert crepe. Needless to say, after that we had a pretty good nap.

For dinner, we found ourselves at Cajou Caffe, where we split an appetizer of escargots (do. not. knock. it. till. you've. tried. it.), B got salmon with amazing potato cakes, and I got risotto with shrimp. Oh yeah, and our dessert of a canelle split in half with caramel ice cream between the halves, nestled into a bed of hot fudge. After that, we needed another nap - like, the overnight kind.

We woke up to rain on our anniversary - but better on our anniversary than on our actual wedding day! We mostly spent Sunday exploring Bordeaux and seeing what we could find to do. First we went down to the river to see what we could see and to grab lunch.

Panoramic of the river from B's camera

As we understood it, this was Bordeaux's "Wall Street"

The thing about Sundays in France is that most places are closed, especially shops, and some restaurants. Thankfully, with the help of TripAdvisor, we found a wine shop that hosted tastings, Wine Cellar & Co. For 15 euros, we were able to do the 5:00 p.m. tasting. We were the only people during our tasting, and Eric, the owner, spent quite a while with us, explaining the wines and giving us yet another overload of wine information. He lived in NYC for eight years, and has been around the world twice on the QE2. He has also earned his master sommelier and certified sommelier distinctions. Needless to say, it was an incredibly informative and pleasant hour in the tiny shop. We had three whites, three reds, one sweet wine, and a taste of Cognac, all paired with pate, cheese, and chocolate.

After that, we explored a little more. Although a storm was brewing, we were able to get some crazy pictures of Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux and the clouds.

It was fast and furious, but we couldn't have asked for a better weekend to celebrate our first year of marriage. Of course, three wine tastings had a lot to do with that, but still. It was neat to see how different Bordeaux was than Tours and how all the regions of France are so distinct, but still incredible. We feel so blessed to be able to see so many different places and see what life is like elsewhere, and also to share that with you. Thanks for following along!

xoxo,
E & B