French wine trip - part 1 - Tuesday 22nd July 2008

This is being written sitting outside in the garden of the small house – La Maison Bleu – that we have rented for the week. It is in a very small French village in the Medoc – part of the Bordeaux wine region – where the sound of cock-a-doodle doos ring out through the countryside from about 5am – frequently accompanied by the sounds of the local church bells, and more infrequently by the sound of dogs barking. At this time of the day – about 5.30pm, the sounds have been replaced by the many wasps and bees busily forraging in the climbing plants around the garden.

We arrived here on Saturday evening, somewhat later than originally planned – take it from me, the ferry from Royan across to the north-end of the Medoc, is not for the impatient or the faint-hearted! Be warned – you could face a three hour delay with the queue for the ferry wending its way backwards through Royan, with almost nowhere to even buy some water. We took an early decision and retraced our steps back to Bordeaux and around by the estuary – somewhat reminiscent of arriving at Tarbert for the ferry across to Killimor only to discover that the ferry would be delayed by a couple of hours and then having to detour into Limerick – at rush hour on a Friday on a bank-holiday weekend.

The early part of our trip wasnt without incident of the boating variety either. We arrived at Rosslare in good time to board the Oscar Wilde for our 17 hour trip from Wexford to Cherbourg. We were due to arrive in France early in the day to give us loads of time to explore the wine shops around the port, buy a few wines to try out during our trip, and then return on the way home to purchase a few more bottles of the ones we had liked most. However, while as a plan this had great merit, the ferry had developed ‘technical problems’ which took some time to resolve (several hours in fact) and then we had lost our berthing spot in Cherbourg, so that we didnt arrive onshore until 8.30pm the following evening. We were onboard for over 27 hours – not a great start...

Fair dues to my travelling companions – my brave sister agreed to do the driving to our initial stop-off point – Alencon, where we arrived at about midnight. We had gathered provisions for a midnight feast in the Auchon in Cherbourg (a really impressive supermarket, open until 10pm), and let ourselves into our hotel. The Hotel des Ducs was almost like a self-service hotel – they gave us a number to key into the key-pad at the door of the hotel, our room keys awaited us and we took it from there! The rooms were very large and comfortable and the showers were great! We did see people the next morning – well, we saw two painters who were doing up the main stairwell, and eventually a pleasant woman who checked us out and took our money. Alencon is a nice little town, with pedestrianised town centre, some impressive old buildings and a great food market. I was really sorry that we werent staying somewhere where we had a kitchen to try out some of the local produce.

Our next two nights were spent in Chinon, in the Loire Valley, in a very small hotel, which was adequate but not impressive – a typical old-fashioned hotel where we had to climb three floors of stairs to reach small but adequate rooms – but I cant say the same for the shower facilities! However we were now getting down to the serious business of wine tasting, so accommodation etc became a secondary issue. En route to Chinon, we visited Domain Huet that afternoon, in the village of Vouvray, and their wines are superb. They use bio-dynamic methods and while it may be seen as an extreme measure to grow produce by the moon phases, the proof of the pudding is in the quality of the outcomes – and in most cases – the results are great. The following day we went to Chateau Bernard Baudry, within the Chinon area and were given over two hours by Mathieu Baudry, who runs the vinyard with his father Bernard. Again, the vines are grown by bio-dynamic methods and organic farming principles, and the quality of the wines was really great – Cabernet Franc grape at its best. Before leaving Chinon behind, we have to mention the 5* omelets we got at the Hotel Le Lion d’Or (another small 2* hotel in the town), where we were made extremely welcome by the proprietor and where we would certainly stay if we were back in that area again (they can be contacted at id3709@inter-hotel.com tres agreable!

As a result of too much hospitality in the bar at the Le Lion d’Or (armagnac and calvados on top of wine isnt to be recommended!) we were a bit behind schedule heading for Bordeaux, so with the ferry-delay etc, we didnt arrive to our little village at Veurtheuil until much later than anticipated. We were made very welcome by our host Alain, and soon headed over to the local creperie for a much needed bite of dinner. One of the best crepes you’ll ever eat, made with proper Breton buckwheat flour, and did it taste good after so many hours on the road along with what felt like hundreds of thousands of drivers all determined to make far-off destinations in as short a timeframe as possible, or die in the attempt. We think that a few of them might indeed had the latter outcome, as there was a serious accident en route which also delayed us. A sobering thought all round, but one which didnt deter many of the drivers to continue to drive recklessly...

By Sunday, we had been existing on food that was either bought already cooked, or that we ate at restaurants for several days, so some home cooking was definitely in order! A bout of shopping at a not very impressive supermarket did yield up some goodies – great fresh salad ingredients (why oh why can we not get tomatoes that taste of something anywhere in Ireland??), some freshly cooked prawns to go with the salad for lunch and then the makings of home-cooked chicken for that evening... all washed down with some of the wines we had brought with us from Chinon... a few nice cheeses rounded off the evening. France has so much great produce, it is a pity that many of its restaurants insist on putting so much on top of it by way of complicated dishes and tastes...

Tuesday saw the first of our Medoc wine visits – we spent a great morning at the Lynch-Bages Estate, being looked after by Charles – and followed this with a light but delicious lunch in the nearby Cafe Lavinal which is in the place at Bages – seemed almost like a film setting - it was so perfect! And in fairness to them, the food they served us was absolutely great – really fresh goats cheese/roasted tomatoes on the best rocket salad was the best of three lovely starters, and is definitely one to recreate at home – if I can find equally good ingredients.

Roll on Chateau Margaux tomorrow!