A bit of Bordeaux bliss

WE HAD a lovely invitation to spend a few days in the Bordeaux area with some French friends whose family have been making wine in the Pessac-Leognan, St Emilion, Margaux and Entre-deux-mers area since 1880.

We flew to Paris and then took a relaxing three-hour train journey to Libourne. It’s been at least 20 years since my last visit to Bordeaux where everyone “lives, breathes and sleeps” wine. The landscape is covered with row after row of meticulously pruned vines sometimes with a red rose bush planted at the end. Originally this was used as an early indication of mildew which tended to attack the roses before the vines.

There are many charming wine villages and chateaux names that are familiar from restaurant wine lists. Many of the grandest date back to the 18th Century, others are less resplendent and some just simple farmhouses, but in Bordeaux it’s the terroir that really matters. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Semilion are the principal grape varieties for dry wines yet produce utterly different wines depending of whether the soil is gravelly, chalky, heavy clay or a mixture.