Bordeaux - Le Weekend Des Grands Amateurs

A few weekends ago Fee and I flew over to Bordeaux, for the annual Le Week-end Des Grands Amateurs. It was a chance for us to discover a little more about the wine and the area that many consider to be the birthplace of fine wine. The first part of the weekend took place at Hangar 14, an exhibition building overlooking the the Garonne river, and consisted of a gathering of over a hundred producers from the region, all sampling two vintages of their wines, a 2006, and an earlier year back to 1998.






Fiona with a nice glass of Sauternes, the sweet white Bordeaux made famous by the likes of Chateau D'Yquem. Our favourites were the Chateau Suduiraut, Climens, and the 2005 Doisy Vedrines.


The consumate professional...


The quality of all the wine was outstanding, and we had a really great day quaffing our way through around 20 - 30 different varieties. For those of you that care, our favourites came predominantly from the St Emilion, Pomerol and Paulliac regions. For those that aren't interested in wine, skip the next bit. Some highlights:

St Emilion

• 2006 Pavie Macquin - strong and fruity (lots of berries) drink around 2016
• 2006 Chateau Canon La Gaffeliere
• Both Chateau Angelus ('06 & '04)
• 2004 Troplong Mondot - this was probably the pick of the day for us.

Pomerol

• 2006 Chateau Clinet
• 06 & 01 La Conseillante - these were really interesting wines

After strolling back through a warm Bordeaux afternoon to our hotel, after about 4 hours of wine tasting, we had a quick kip, showered and changed and made our way back into town to catch a bus with a group out to St Emilion, where Chateau Canon La Gaffeliere were hosting a dinner to help celebrate the weekend (and sell a few cases too obviously!) We were welcomed at the Chateau by Count Stephan Von Neipperg, an Austrian rich guy (complete with apricot sweater around the shoulders) who owns a number of Bordeaux chateaux. You'd expect this kind of person to be a touch on the snobbish side, however we soon discovered that he and his wife were anything but. After some delicious canapes, and an introduction in French and English, we were shown the huge oak vats through which the wine passes. It seems to still be a very traditional process (although fastidiously quality controlled), and they take great pride in this. They also have to meet stringent regulations to ensure they maintain their 'Grand Cru' status.

Mr Neipperg delivering an address. We were sitting on a great table, with the Count himself, the Marketing Director from another vineyard called Malartic Lagraviere (who make a good white wine), a vineyard owner from Lebanon (who also spoke English, French and probably other languages besides his native tongue). We also sat with a nice English couple, and an Australian couple who also really welcoming. Not sure what you can see from the photo above, but I've never sat down to a table with more glasses! Each setting had six! Needless to say it was a good night!

Above: 'The wine table'...the bottle on the right is the normal sized bottle. The 1999 Canon La Gaffeliere was really, really good, and showed us a little about how well the wine ages. The entire meal was just fantastic, with each course paired with a glass (or in some cases 2) of wine from the region. We rolled out of there around midnight, bussed back to Bordeaux, and had a well earned sleep in the next day!

The next day (having got up around midday) we decided to spend the day roaming around Bordeaux itself.

Breakfast (or was it lunch) at a bistro in town. A glass of Suduiraut, scallops (the best) and a steak.....brekkie of champions! After that, the weather warmed up, so we were able to enjoy some sunshine.

Calippo in the park!

The following day, we caught a train (a little later than we would like due to some cancellations) out to St Emilion, for a quickfire tour around this beautiful little hill town before flying home.

Chateau Canon La Gaffeliere, we we had dinner earlier in the weekend.

St Emilion is well-known for two things: wine (obviously) and macarons....tasty little morsels of cookie-like goodness. Although we didn't have as much time as we would've liked, it was still really nice to visit the quiet cobblestone streets, and the dusty old wine cellars filled with eye-poppingly expensive plonk. We did manage however, to find the time to pick ourselves up a couple of bottles of Troplong Mondot, which we quite liked from Staurday's tasting.

As you can see, we would've been quite happy to stay a little longer, and avoid our panic-stricken journey on a late-running train, and a peak hour taxi through backstreet Bordeaux to the airport....unfortunately the plane was still waiting for us, so we had to go. We'll definitely be back...