BORDEAUX, FRANCE

                                             A City Full of History

            While we were biking Bordeaux, France the Air France pilots went on strike. My pot-luck roommate couldn’t let go of it and talked incessantly about how she was going to get home. Finally I’d had enough and simply told her I did not want to hear any more about it, as there was absolutely nothing we could do until we actually reached Bordeaux.

            Our Bordeaux hotel was located on a very narrow street in the heart of the old city and nothing bigger than a small car could get down the street. We were let out at the end of the block. Our guide hustled to the hotel for the luggage cart and took care of that chore. The small old hotel had been renovated and updated and turned out to be quaint and most comfortable to say nothing of being very well located.

            After we settled into the reception area we learned we all had been rerouted home on other airlines. My flight times were a mere 15-minutes off from my original schedule. A bit later our local city docent arrived. The very flamboyant little French fellow spoke English with a marked accent. I’ll never forget the picture of him flitting into the street, frantically waving for all traffic to stop, and yelling, “hurry, hurry” to us. He knew his city and its history well and walked us all over it for over three hours!

            We learned the city was a walled one until the 1800s when the walls were torn down and the ditches

One of remaining gates to city

filled in. Several ports to the city remain; we walked through a couple of them plus one in the pedestrian mall on the way back to the hotel. Bordeaux is the capitol of the Aquitaine region. The name means port of the moon. The Gironde River is moon shaped in this area, thus the city’s name. In 1453 it was the last area to become French again after the Roman Empire.

            Ten years ago the population was over 650,000.  The huge Statue of Freedom  is full of symbolism and one of the city’s landmarks. A statue atop a 43-meter high column represents Freedom breaking out of his shackles. At the base is a large ornate fountain cast in bronze.  In the fountain are horses and falling soldiers The docent went on for some time about the battles between two factions. In this large square there are a couple of other statues. I wish I could tell you more about, but between being tired, the docent’s accent and my disinterest in local conflicts, my notes are pretty scanty.

            Needless to say there are several well known churches in the city. We poked our head in one of them and the thing I remember most was the straight back chairs instead of pews that I suspect were anything but comfortable.

            It was in Bordeaux that we discovered France shuts down about 2:30 in the afternoon as all the restaurants and cafés close. It was quite an adventure walking up several alleyways to find a sidewalk café still open. Although the one we found was ready to close they did accommodate four of us ladies for lunch. We had an excellent leisurely meal. It was kind of management not to rush us on our last day in France. We gratefully tipped them well. Their kindness made our day.

An aside re: dogs.

            It seems everyone in France owns a dog, often a small one, and they go everywhere! It is strange for an American to see dogs in a store, market or restaurant. I was shocked at how well behaved they were; even when not on a leash the dog stuck close to his owner. I never heard a dog bark, except in the country when one might bark from his backyard as we biked by. However, they do drop their business anywhere and everywhere so it is wise to watch where one steps when walking the alleyways. The French wouldn’t think of carrying a plastic bag, never mind a super, duper, pooper scooper! 

THE MEDOC AND ITS WINE

                                         One Area for French Wines

            When we reached the Medoc area in France we encountered rolling hills, most of which were no problem for the majority of us. There are 8000 grape growers in the Medoc. Grapes from the northern part are good for table and country wines while finer wines are made from grapes grown in southern areas.

            A grape grower’s home is called a chateau. Many are small, some are castle-like but most are modest  and in between. We stopped at one 5-star chateau and our guide stopped and talked the vintner into giving us a tour of his facility. Afterward we biked on to Chateau Mouton Rothschild to tour their facility which sits 14 meters above sea level. From the 50 hectares of planted vineyards they bottle 250,000 bottles of wine a year. Of the three Rothschild facilities this one bottles the finest wines. The temperature controlled underground cellar is 100-feet long. The aging rooms were so clean you could have eaten off the floor!  The chateau employs 600-700 people to hand pick the grapes during a 3-10 day harvesting period.

            Philip Rothschild bought the facility in 1922. It was in a bit of disrepair but in 1924 he decided to bottle his wine at the facility which at the time was unheard of, as growers sent their wine to a wine merchant for bottling. The bottling process takes three weeks. These wines became premier in 1973 and have remained so.

            We had a long lecture one morning before starting to bike. The French talk about terroir for which there is no English translation, but it includes soil, slope and exposure. The soil of the Medoc is rocky. And Medoc means between waters and refers to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gironde River. In the 1700s the area was swampy and in the pockets of gravel is where the wine industry started. Vine roots can reach down 30-feet. The stones hold the heat of the day and draws water up from the depth in the coolness of the night. The vineyards do not irrigate; the grapes are totally dependent on nature. Grape vines can live 100 years but are usually pulled after 50 years. The quality does not diminish with age but the number of grape clusters diminish.

            Wine grapes are not good eating grapes and vice versa. Fermentation makes the difference between wine and grape juice. Yeast which is always in the air, clings to the grape skins and goes into the vats with the juice. The yeast feeds on natural sugar producing CO2 and alcohol. The fermentation process takes 3-5 days. The alcohol level finally gets so high it kills the yeast. The left over sugar determines the fruitiness of the wine. The yeast content determines the temperature in the vat and both are monitored carefully.

            After the first fermentation the juice and skins are removed to another fat for 2-3 weeks. The date on the bottle of wine is the year the grapes were grown not the year it was bottled.

            Bordeaux has 57 sub-regions and the Medoc is only one of them. Then the Medoc is divided into two sub-regions—the high and the low or the up river and down river. Then there are sections to the sub-regions. And that is what is listed on the bottle label. Cru means growth. The Medoc vineyards cover 45,000 acres and bottles 92,000,000 bottles of wine annually.

            Although the lecture was long, he was a most interesting speaker and I learned a lot. This is but a synopsis, but probably all you ever wanted to know about wine.

            It was a gorgeous warm, sunny day for biking. The next day we biked on to Paulliac where we surrendered our bikes, which is always an emotional time. Paulliac is only a short way from Bordeaux.