Mr and Mrs Smith: Bordeaux - Le Weekend Des Grands Amateurs 2010

We had a fantastic time at the 2010 Les Weekend Des Grand Amateurs in Bordeaux. We sampled many wines (way too many wines) at the tasting in Bordeaux on the Saturday, sampling the 2007 vintage from each chateau, and a selection of other vintages chosen by the chateau themselves. 2007 is known as a good, but not outstanding, vintage for Bordeaux, but there are gems to be found if you look around.

We went on a bus tour on the Sunday, through St Emillion and Pomerol, stopping at 3 chateau for tours and tastings and lunch in between.

We also stopped at the pretty hilltop town of St Emillion, in our opinion the loveliest village in the Bordeaux region.

Our first chateau visit was to Troplong Mondot, which was already a favourite of ours that we discovered at the weekend last year.

The grapes were in flower during our visit, which is not something I had ever seen before

Margot - our tour guide for the day, and daughter of the family that now owns and runs the chateau.

Troplong Mondot's beautiful barrel room. It smelt divine!

mmmmmm......nice nose!

The family home.....

Our next stop after lunch was Chateau Clinet in Pomerol

A quick stop for a photo of the famous (and rediculously expensive!) Chateau Petrus in Pomerol.

Back to Bordeaux for an aperitif...

Then a delicious dinner at our favourite bistro, that we dont actually know the name of. All we know is that the food is top notch!

On Monday, we had organised tours through a couple of chateau, one in Pomerol and one in Maragaux. Wine tourism doesn't exist in Bordeaux like it does in Australia and you have to make an appointment to have a tour or tasting at the chateau, you cant just turn up at the cellar door. Also, there are no sales permitted from the cellar door like in Australia.

We were privelliged enough to have a private tour through La Consiallante in Pomerol. The general manager was kind enough to show us around the vineyard and cellars, and we were lucky enough to try a 2009 barrel sample. The vineyard has some prestigous neighbours including Cheval Blanc, Le Pin and L' Evangile. The La Consiallante was delicious.

Next, we crossed the Gironde over to the left bank, to visit Chateau Palmer. We did a tour with an Aussie family, a couple from Canada and a lady straight off the plane from South Africa. The chateau had beautiful grounds and was quite large in comparison to the other we had seen.

The vat room, with stainless steel tanks...