For a wine lover a trip to Bordeaux is a must! Here you find world famous châteaux and world famous wines but also a lot of new exciting initiatives (less famous but maybe more important for the future of Bordeaux!) and young enthusiastic wine makers.
On this long weekend trip we will visit both some big, famous Grand Cru Classé-châteaux and smaller ones that are less known, but very quality conscious. We will visit all the well-known regions like Médoc and Saint-Emilion, but also rising-stars among the regions, like Entre-deux-Mers and Premières Côtes de Bordeaux.
We will learn about viticulture and wine making and after this trip you will have a good understanding of current developments in the Bordeaux wine region.
We will stay four nights in the city of Bordeaux, an elegant and very beautiful city of just over half a million people. In the evenings you will have the possibility to explore Bordeaux, the sights and the many restaurants, at your leisure.
We will meet in Bordeaux, which is easy to reach; only 3 hours away from Paris by TGV-train (the airports of Bordeaux and Bergerac are also nearby). You will arrive Wednesday evening the 8th of October at the latest. On Thursday morning the 9th of October, our bus will pick us up for our first visits in the vineyards. Sunday 12th of October is departure day.
Programme
Preliminary program.
For more details, contact BKWine.
Wednesday October 8
Arrival in Bordeaux. Check in at our hotel in the city centre, close to the beautiful newly renovated Grand Théâtre.
At around 8 pm we will meet at a restaurant nearby for a welcome dinner. We will taste some good wines and you will at the same time get acquainted with your fellow wine enthusiasts.
Thursday October 9 – Médoc
Our bus will pick us up at our hotel after breakfast.
We will spend the day in Médoc, home to many of the big chateaux names and famous for its wines made primarily of Cabernet Sauvignon. Our bus will take us through the villages of Margaux, Saint-Julien and Pauillac and up to Saint-Estèphe and we will see many beautiful and famous châteaux on the way.
We will visit a few of these chateaux, some of them Grand Cru Classé, for instance Château Brane-Cantenac, Château Phelan-Ségur, Château Paloumey, Château Kirwan
At each of the chateaux we visit we will have private wine tastings.
Lunch will be hosted at one of the chateaux we visit.
Early evening we will be back in Bordeaux and the evening is yours to relax and to discover some nice local restaurant, for example in the Old Town of Bordeaux dating back to the 18th century.
Friday October 10 – Saint-Emilion/Pomerol
On the other side of the rivers Garonne and Dordogne are Saint-Emilion and Pomerol. The châteaux are smaller than those in the Médoc but the landscape is prettier with more rolling hills and green forests. It is in this region the most expensive wines in Bordeaux can be found.
We will visit some very interesting producers - for instance Château Bellefont-Belcier, Château Grâce Dieu les Menuts, Château Grand Corbin Despagne and Château Gaillard - where we will meet the dynamic owner and winemaker Catherine Papon Nouvel.
We will have lunch in the picturesque town of Saint Emilion where you will also have time for a quick stroll before our afternoon visit. Saint Emilion is a wonderful medieval small town on the World Heritage list of UNESCO.
Early evening we are back in Bordeaux. Free evening.
Saturday October 11 – Entre-deux-Mers, Sauternes, and Graves
“Between the rivers”, in Entre-deux-Mers, the quality of wines is getting better and better. This is perhaps the Bordeaux district where quality has increased with the greatest leaps and bounds over the last two decades. Also, here you can afford to buy them! Look for superb wines under “simple” appellations like Bordeaux Supérieur, but of course, you have to know where to look. This is one of the places in Bordeaux where it pays to know exactly where to go, and when you do, value for money is assured. We will visit one of the “new wave” châteaux here.
For lunch we will go to the region that produces the most famous sweet wines in the world, Sauternes. Here we will have a magnificent lunch in one of the big chateaux, classified as 1er Grand Cru Classé in 1855, enjoy the setting and splendour as well as the gastronomic lunch. We will have a 4-course meal accompanied with Sauternes wines (!), and if you didn’t think it is possible to drink sweet wines throughout a meal, well, you were wrong!
We will end our wine tour in Graves where you find superb red and white wines. Here we will visit a small family estate, well known for its superb red and white wines. Graves is the oldest wine region in Bordeaux and some of the chateaux here were talked about already in the 17th century. The soil is very well adapted to Cabernet Sauvignon but also to the white varieties Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon. They mix very well together, Sauvignon gives the wine a nice aromatic touch and Sémillon adds fatness and fullness.
Early evening we are back in Bordeaux. Free evening.
Sunday October 12
Departure.
About the wine estates we visit
We want you to experience the best and the most interesting estates. Therefore, we put a lot of effort into finding really good producers to visit. Contrary to what one might think, the most exciting wine producers are not always the "famous names". Often the passionately engaging visits happen when you meet the winemaker or the owner himself (or quite often herself) and his family.
Frequently detailed discussions get underway where a true understanding of how things really “work” develops, we may even stay and have lunch at the winery (unlike in the US many of these do not have purpose-built restaurants). This is also why our trips do not have large numbers of visits on the programme. Even so, we regularly run short of time due to conversations lasting a lot longer than intended and where more and more wines are brought out to taste, somehow time flies.
Our trips are usually a mixture of small family producers and larger, well known wine estates - carefully selected to give you the unique wine experience.
What will you remember the most: the charming winery staff guide with perfect English, or the passionate winemaker who won't let you go until you've tasted yet another of his wines?
Facts
Dates: October 8-12, 2008
Price: 905 euro
Single room supplement: 100 euro
Included in the price:
4 hotel nights in double room, including breakfast, in the city centre of Bordeaux (3-star hotel)
Meals:
3 gastronomic lunches including wine (we’re planning at least two lunches at wine chateaux)
Welcome dinner with local specialities including wine (Wednesday evening)
Bus transportation in Bordeaux
All vineyard visits including private tastings at the wineries
Interpretation from French, as needed
Wine and tourism guiding by your BKWine guide
Not included:
Air travel to Bordeaux
You go to Bordeaux on your own (we are happy to give you advice on how to get there) and you arrive in the evening of October 8, at the latest.
Tour organiser: Britt Karlsson of BKWine
Britt is of Swedish origin and based in Paris. Since 15 years she works with wine, wine education, wine journalism and organises wine tours. She has over the years arranged a large number of wine tours (a couple of hundreds actually) and has an extensive network of contacts in the wine regions and a deep knowledge of recent developments to make sure that our visits are exceptional. She visits some 200 wineries every year and is frequently called on to participate as a wine judge in international wine competitions.
Our wine guides: Many of our tours are led by Britt herself, with fifteen years experience of wine travel, wine tasting and wine writing, and living in France since 1990. Some tours are led by our highly skilled collaborators. Our wine guides are enthusiastic wine people with a thorough knowledge of both wine and local culture and gastronomy. Plus, of course, language since some of the visits often are in the local language (those visits are often the most interesting ones actually!) and we will then translate to English.
Our wine cellar tours are usually planned around a long weekend (Wednesday evening to Sunday morning) so that you can plan your holiday to also include other activities, such as visiting cultural sites, play golf – or why not drop in to a few more wineries while in the region (we’ll be glad to give you a few names to our preferred vineyards!).
From a gastronomic standpoint, our tours always include some gourmet highlights with local culinary specialities – we often plan at least one gourmet lunch at a winery or vineyard together with the winemaker.
Plan your wine country vacation with BKWine and we can guarantee you an unforgettable wine experience.
Book this trip
Please register for this trip not later than July 1, 2008
You book by contacting Britt Karlsson, BKWine:
phone: +33 1 58 88 04 66 or +33 6 80 45 35 70 (+33 is the country code for France)
Registration is confirmed by paying the registration fee of €150. Full payment should be received at the latest one month before the departure date. Payments should be made by bank transfer to BKWine’s bank in Sweden. Details will be sent to you when you register.
Important
We always travel in small groups. The maximum group is usually around 20. This is to ensure that our visits are of high quality and that we receive a personal welcome.
For this trip to take place we must have 10 participant registered at the date of book-no-later-than.
You organise your travel independently to the destination but on location we take care of everything.
BKWine is a Swedish registered travel organiser. BKWine has a bonded travel guarantee deposit so that you can feel safe booking with us. We comply fully with European and Swedish travel guarantee regulations. British travellers may be familiar with the ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) protection scheme which is a similar model. BKWine follows the code of conduct and financial safeguards defined by the Swedish Consumer Agency and The Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency ("Kammarkollegiet", with a history dating back to 1539). Read more about this in our Booking Terms and Conditions.
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