Articles, Europe

A Pilgrimage to Bordeaux Wine Country in France

by Lee Foster

Every traveler with an interest in wine and food owes himself or herself, at some point in life, a pilgrimage to Bordeaux. I will always remember my own journey to this gustatory shrine.

A glass of well-aged red wine from one of the better chateaux of the Medoc or a sweet white wine from one of the best Sauternes chateaux are two of the exquisite taste pleasures that life offers. Drinking these wines at their place of origin, after seeing how the grapes are grown and the wine vinted, is a satisfying, unified experience.

The memories of a trip to Bordeaux can last a lifetime, flooding back whenever you subsequently have an opportunity to open another bottle of Bordeaux wine.

For the American traveler, whose most accessible wine drinking experience may be California wines, the trip to Bordeaux is an exhilarating search for the origin of the Cabernet and Merlot vines that create some of the most satisfying California red wines. Bordeaux is also the first home of the Sauvignon and Semillon grapes that constitute so many attractive white wines in California.

The budget traveler should note that monetary savings spent on drinking a week’s worth of good Bordeaux wine in Bordeaux, where the wine is cheapest at its place of origin, can contribute substantially to the cost of a charter flight to get you to Paris. Since the American liquor lobby prevents the traveler from bringing back more than two bottles per person, you are limited in the number of viticultural souvenirs you can return with.

NIGHT TRAIN TO BORDEAUX

From Paris my companion and I caught the night train to Bordeaux, in the southwest of the country, and arrived in the morning, after a reasonably restful night in a couchette. Catching the train from Paris is the convenient way to get to Bordeaux for most travelers. The excellent service and many comforts of the European trains will come as a surprise to travelers who would not consider this mode of travel in the United States.

Once in Bordeaux we spent a day exploring the city, which resembles a provincial Versailles, because it is the repository of so much 18th-century architecture. The Place de la Bourse, with its Three Graces Fountain, is one of the finest examples of this classically graceful style. Bordeaux is also a busy port, exporting wine and other products. As with many world ports, the tone is one of openness and tolerance. With its wavering historical allegiance between England and France, it should come as no surprise that moderation is the cornerstone of the Bordeaux temperament. It is no accident that the tentative essays of Michel de Montaigne, a mayor of Bordeaux and a grape grower, are the celebrated contribution to world literature from the Bordeaux region.

In Bordeaux we rented a car at the office near the train station. A rented car is crucial for excursions into the regions around Bordeaux, though the one-way streets and mazelike medieval passageways in the city are so forbidding to negotiate that the traveler should leave the car at his hotel during urban exploration. We stayed at the Normandie Hotel, a first-rate establishment, centrally located near the Maison du Vin, the House of Wine, which offers all the information a traveler could want on how to see the region and visit various chateaux, which should be arranged in advance. Both the House of Wine and the Normandie Hotel are striking examples of 18th-century architecture. Across the street is a remarkable shop called the Vinotheque, a library of wine, selling bottles from 200 of the most prominent chateaux of the Bordeaux region in many different vintages.

In the city of Bordeaux we also had our first encounter with the gastronomy of the region. At a restaurant called La Belle Epoque we dined on Gambas Grille, boiled and slightly grilled shrimp, and Fillet de Saint-Pierre, a fish fillet in a sauce of egg, lemon, and mustard. The Bordeaux gastronome has access to a variety of fresh seafood, especially fish and lamprey, as well as wild mushrooms, and a plentiful supply of cow, sheep, and goat cheeses. More of this will be recounted deliciously as this tale unfolds.

THE MEDOC

A traveler in the Bordeaux area has three main regions to explore: the Medoc to the north, St. Emilion to the east, and Grave-Sauterne to the south. We found that each area merits at least one day of active looking, with perhaps two days preferred for the Medoc. The principal chateaux are all an hour or less drive from Bordeaux. Each area has strong defining characteristics that make it distinguishable from the others.

The gracious director of the House of Wine made an appointment for us to visit Chateau Prieure-Lichine in the Margaux commune and interview its owner, Alexis Lichine. (Some years have passed since I made the journey I recount here, so the personalities I mention will have aged, like good red Bordeaux wine, if you choose to duplicate my experience. Some of the personalities will have gone on to their reward, which was, hopefully, vinous. Their comments about Bordeaux wine, however, will be true for the ages.)

Though access to the chateau owners is easier for a journalist than for a member of the general public to arrange, nevertheless any general traveler can be received by some chateaux for a tour of the cellars if appointments are made in advance. If no such arrangements are made, the traveler can drive the roads and see the vineyards and buildings.

My recollection of threading my way hesitantly out of Bordeaux through rather complex small roads into the Medoc region reminded me later of the first opinion that Alexis Lichine offered that afternoon.

“In Bordeaux there isn’t a single sign that says, ‘This way to the famous vineyards,’” he said. “For a region whose whole existence depends on wine, you’d think they’d push the product a little harder.”

He was alluding to a style characteristic of the Medoc, where the aristocratic owners of the large estates tend to presume that future consumers are born with an innate knowledge that Medoc wines are superior.

Our car climbed through ridges and forests on high hills that protect the eastward-facing vineyards, then descended into the gradual plain of vineyards approaching the Gironde River. Here lie the great houses whose wealth benefits from the wine trade, but whose opulence could not be accounted for solely by wine sales. In the Medoc there is an underlying anti-commercial temperament that caused some chateaux in the 19th century to surround the houses with gardens so the vines, tainted by commerce, would not be visible. That attitude is changing today.

However, there is another reason for this absence of directions to the vineyards. Bordeaux is situated in an isolated corner of southwestern France, far from tourism circuits. Only the purposeful traveler, usually someone with an interest in wine, comes to Bordeaux. The area remains a fresh and exciting place to discover. You are treated here as a special guest; your presence is an event.

Alexis Lichine is (sadly, was) a singular man, which is a story in itself. But suffice to say that this Russian-born, but Americanized promoter of wine, who lived much of the year at his wine property in Bordeaux, probably did more than any other individual to acquaint Americans with the civilized pleasures of wine drinking. Since he looked to be about 50, it was hard to imagine that he was actually born in 1913, and that he was crisscrossing the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, preaching that wine was indeed a delightful drink, at a time when the whiskey-and-water drinking Americans saw winemakers not as artists but as bootleggers who ought to be controlled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Those of us who drink wine every day can scarcely conceive how odd and un-American we would have been then. Lichine’s books, The Wines of France and his Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits have been bought and read more than any other wine books.

His Chateau Prieure-Lichine in the Margaux commune is always open to the general traveler for a visit. Lichine bought the property in 1951 and gradually refurbished and upgraded both the house and vineyards, originally run by Benedictine monks. The location of Chateau Prieure-Lichine is just behind the church in the village of Cantenac, but there is no difficulty in finding it, because Lichine has the only billboards in the region, a fact that some of the subdued Medocian wine-producers don’t appreciate. Through numerous land trades he upgraded the vineyards, switching sandy alluvial soil that produces less distinctive tasting grapes for the more gravelly terrain so highly prized in the Medoc.

We walked to his cellars and, as is the custom in Bordeaux, drank the young wine from the past season.

“There are four factors in good wine production,” he reminded us. “The soil, the grape variety, the microclimate, and the man behind the bottle.”

We tasted and spat out his vigorous, full-bodied, most-recent vintage. Though appropriately hard and tannic at this tender age, the wine promised the backbone and complexity that maturity brings to Medoc wines. The wines are drinkable after three years, but peak anywhere from 5 to 25 years, with some having longevity to last 100 years.

Lichine’s operation was a mix of respectful tradition, innovation when it works, and a strong artistic flair covering both.

“You can see that I’m a frustrated interior designer,” he said, as we entered the vat room where the grapes are received. He had tiled the vat in colorful red inlaid small squares. The cement holding tanks for the wine, built right into the walls of the property, were covered with antique cast-iron firebacks, which once were used to reflect heat in fireplaces. Lichine scoured the antique stores of Europe for these covers and once found several being used as manhole covers in a Mosel town.

Lichine was rigidly traditional in his scrupulous care for the vines, keeping them well pruned, retaining them into their declining age because then the grapes are most tasty.

“The one tradition I detest,” he said, “is the fascination many winemakers have with picturesque filth in wine aging rooms.”

We were looking down the rows of barrels that hold his wine. The floor was clean enough to eat off of. Everything was whitewashed or stainless steel. No picturesque cobwebs or piles of gray dust here.

“As nowhere else, the dominance of soil as a winemaking factor is apparent here,” he said. “Year after year in the Medoc an impartial taster will rate one vineyard’s wine as better than the wine from a neighboring vineyard. The whole secret of the Medoc is gravel soil. If you have gravel you can produce great wine. Gravel increases the drainage and reduces the fruit size.”

Among grape varieties in the Medoc, Lichine had a stronger appreciation for Merlot than do some vintners. Cabernet Sauvignon is the required backbone grape of the Medoc red wine, but a percentage of Merlot is desired. Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot are the other allowed grapes. Lichine favored more Merlot because it makes a softer wine that can be drunk earlier, but the authorities, to whom a grower must apply for permission when replanting grape varieties, have a greater appreciation for Cabernet. For some American wine drinkers and for some U.S. government regulators who believe that 100 percent Cabernet is the best wine, it may come as a surprise to learn that Merlot is so prominent in Bordeaux wines, and that one of the growths considered in the top six red wines of the entire region, Petrus of Pomerol, contains only Merlot.

The microclimate of the Medoc is affected by sizable hills and forests behind the vineyards, protecting the fields from Atlantic storms. The gravel soil absorbs the sun’s warmth and radiates it back to the vines at night. The one excess of nature that causes most concern for growers, aside from occasional hailstones, is frost, such as the devastating cold snap of 1956 that killed many vines.

In California, or even in the Mosel, sprinkler systems in the field can control frost. The water absorbs the cold, and as long as water runs over the vines, they don’t freeze. But in Bordeaux, as a condition of the rigid appellation rules, no artificial water can be placed on the vines. That means no irrigation, only rainfall. Drought and frost are left in the hands of nature, which would not be possible in California where many vineyards are planted in arid regions with no summer rainfall. This dependency on chance rather than on human controls will always make vintage years in Bordeaux a more crucial consideration than in the United States.

The technique of the man behind the bottle is also carefully controlled. For example, pruning is required so that the total quantity of grape juice per acre falls below a specified level.

“The future of Bordeaux wine is not entirely secure,” said Lichine. “The best growers are commanding, and getting, extremely high prices. Bordeaux wines are assuming the image of expensive wines, discouraging large ranges of consumers. This could have a negative long-range effect.”

Lichine was also a believer in selections of wine rather than plastic vintage charts listing the good years. He cautioned that the “other than great” years were not “bad” years, but were “smaller” years, and that wine drunk when young from smaller years may be more satisfying than wines drunk too young from great years. Drinking these wines too young is a common problem today, when the word “cellar” hardly characterizes what the modern person, often an apartment dweller, can manage.

With the consummate skill of the French, Lichine arranged a lunch with simplicity and elegance. We began with large artichokes and vinegar dressing. No slave to precept, Lichine did not flinch at the mix of wine and vinegar.

“The sole purpose of wine is to give pleasure,” he said, as we downed a bottle of his white Alexis Lichine Selections. “The artichoke also gives pleasure, so I combine them.”

There followed two sumptuous platters, worthy of a still-life painting, consisting of large Dorado fish, baked whole, resting on beds of rice.

As dessert we partook of a handsome cheese platter of Stilton, Camembert, and Swiss, along with a bottle of his Prieure-Lichine.

ONWARD IN THE MEDOC

After leaving Lichine I kept an appointment at Chateau Margaux, walking through its vast cellar of barrels. Barrel making in Bordeaux is a prominent art because many of the chateaux insist on all new barrels for each new vintage. The idea is that the tannins and taste of the oak is strongest with the new barrels. In California a mellower, older barrel would tend to be preferred. On each stop new comparative aspects of winemaking were revealed. At Margaux I learned that the Bordeaux winemakers press without the stems, but in Burgundy grapes are pressed with the stems on, because Bordeaux wine doesn’t need the extra tannin of the stems. Until 1960 all of Margaux’s grapes were pressed by foot. The second press at Margaux goes to the state distillery for making industrial alcohol.

The countryside of Medoc is picturesque, though not equal to the Cote-d’Or in Burgundy, the Napa Valley in California, or the Mosel in Germany. Vines in the Medoc are on gradual hillsides or flatlands, facing northeast to the ever-widening river, the Gironde, which spreads out like a swallow’s tail, as the name in French suggests, while running to the sea.

Except at a visit with an English speaker, such as Lichine, the traveler should realize that conversations need to be in French.

As general travelers without appointments, we then looked at the vineyards and buildings of Chateaux Latour, Mouton-Rothschild, and Lafite-Rothschild. Latour, as the translation from the French suggests, was indeed a quaint white tower. Mouton-Rothschild included elegant and manicured gardens, but the famous wine museum there, worth seeing, was closed in August. At Mouton-Rothschild I watched a man walking the vineyards with a machete, slicing off the vine branches. He was reducing the leaf growth to concentrate more energy and sunlight in the berries. This commitment to small volume production of choice wine makes Mouton-Rothschild able to command such a dear price among consumers.

On another day I was fortunate to have an appointment with Jean-Eugene Borie, owner of Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou, farther north in the Medoc at the commune of St. Julien. The name of this property, “beautiful pebbles,” tells much about the ideal soil sought in St. Julien to produce their dark, almost black, perfumy wines. The Borie family took over this property in 1942 after the previous owner had let the wines fall in reputation. Through energetic attention since then, Borie has brought the winery back to its earlier peak.

“To make great wine, we say in the Medoc, ‘The vines must see the river,’” said Borie, as we strolled over his estate above the Gironde.

I noted how close together his vines were planted. He replied that this reduced the growth, cutting fruit size and quantity, but improving the fruit flavor. Surrounding his palatial home, an 18th-century edifice with added Victorian towers, are 100 acres of vines planted 65 percent in Cabernet, 25 percent in Merlot, and 10 percent in Cabernet Franc/Petit Verdot. Dressed impeccably in his suit, Borie confided to me that making this Bordeaux wine was not a very profitable business for him.

“There are many good wines to be drunk from Bordeaux,” he said. “But the last inch of quality is extremely expensive to buy.”

In the cellars we tasted his most recent vintage, which had a rich bouquet, lovely deep color, and the strong tannins that would enable it to age well. With a silver tasting cup that had a convex surface, a cup style unique to Bordeaux, we were able to see the fine gradations of wine color that are a concern in selecting Bordeaux wines.

While walking through his cellar, I noticed one rack with bottles from 1879. If ever there was an expression to me on this trip of the maxim, “Wine is the past, always present,” this was the moment.

With Jean-Eugene and his lovely wife Monique, we then enjoyed a superb lunch, at the chateau, consisting of a homemade liver pâté, a tomato and squash grill, veal, cheeses that ranged from a Normandie Camembert to sheep cheese from the Pyrenees, peaches and strawberries in wine, and an almond pastry. With the lunch there was much good conversation and three fine bottles of wine, a Haut-Batailly, which is owned by Borie’s sister, and two bottles of Ducru-Beaucaillou. These were progressively more subtle and engaging wines. Borie held that the Pyrenees sheep cheese was the best cheese to eat with wine because it was so dry.

ST. EMILION

As I left the region of Medoc, with a wave good-bye from Borie, dressed in his elegant suit, I felt that we had been privileged to meet the best of Medoc. The wines and people were aristocratic, refined, true expressions of noblesse oblige.

The ironically perfect contrast to Borie and the Medoc came at St. Emilion, where, after traveling 18 twisty miles of back roads, we arrived at the House of Wine, in this charming, small medieval town, and were greeted by Michel Becot, his eyes sparkling, his manner darting, his cheeks rosy, and dressed in a printed T-shirt and tennis shoes. The T-shirt read in French, “I love St. Emilion.”

This informality and openness of my host was a fitting manifestation of the genius of St. Emilion. While the chateaux of the Medoc are large, sometimes 500 acres, the average St. Emilion property is merely 25 acres, more democratic than aristocratic, more like Burgundy than Bordeaux. The St. Emilion wine people are more receptive to the average traveler, I feel, and perhaps they have more fun in life and take themselves less seriously than the highborn Medocians.

With Becot and his gracious wife Ginette we spent a busy day rambling through the town and countryside of St. Emilion. We began with the town itself, which is the postcard wine town of France, even more so than Beaune. The red-tile roofs of St. Emilion descend like in a natural amphitheater. There are churches from the 12th-century medieval times. On a hillside near the town is Chateau Ausone, which is named after, and may have been the property of, the 4th-century Roman poet and politician from the Bordeaux region, Ausonius. He sang the praises of Bordeaux wine at an early date, but the exact location of his property in the 4th century excites scholarly passions. Near St. Emilion, following my energetic guide, Becot, I walked to the middle of a field where I could see clearly discernible trenches in fallow ground. These trenches were the style of cultivation used by the Romans, chopping gashes in the soft chalk soil to set out vines. Underneath the city and under the main chateaux, such as Ausone and Beausejour, there are miles of caves cut in the soft rock, over centuries. The caves are now used to age wine, and in some cases to grow mushrooms.

At Beausejour, perhaps a half mile from town, sitting on a slight rise, we looked down at the chateau and vineyards that are so aptly named, as a “beautiful residence.” From Beausejour we journeyed to Chateau Cheval Blanc, where we were warmly received by the manager. Since Cheval Blanc is the one St. Emilion wine that is unquestionably ranked with the greatest Medoc reds, I asked the manager to what he attributed its special taste.

“How can I talk about my child?” the manager said. “It would be immodest to praise her. But look at our vineyards and those of our neighbors.”

We were standing on a balcony above the cellars.

“We have the same climate as our neighbors,” he said. “They have vinting skills equal to ours. But the difference is that we have on our property, which is large by St. Emilion standards, fully 35 hectares, three kinds of soil: sand, gravel, and aliosse. The difference is the ground and our capacity for blending the three flavors of wine. This option is not open to our neighbors. I can see no difference but the soil between us.”

The stop at Cheval Blanc took us unquestionably to the most famous, but not the most typical, vineyards of St. Emilion. The latter event occurred at a wonderful stop we made at the Tour Vachon property, where we talked with the winemaker, Rene Rebinquet, and his wife. They do all the wine processing themselves, from planting the vines to bottling the product. They also grow all of their own vegetables. Here was the independent small farmer, the backbone of St. Emilion. Rebinquet makes 20,000 bottles a year and sells them all direct to French customers.

With Michel and Ginette Becot, we finished this ramble through the countryside of St. Emilion, the most tourable of all the Bordeaux regions, with a memorable meal at La Plaisance restaurant in town. This encounter was our most memorable meal in Bordeaux, and I might add, one of the most notable repasts in my lifetime. We began with a liver pâté that was a meal in itself. Then came a course of lampreys and leeks in a red-wine-of-St.-Emilion sauce, a local specialty. The lampreys were caught in the Gironde River, though fewer are taken each year. The next course was a salmon fillet, cooked quickly over vine clippings, another regional specialty. Then, after a beef brochette, we were served a platter of large black wild mushrooms found in the region. Cheese followed, a Camembert, a Brie, and a cheese I didn’t know, from the Massif Central. Dessert was a macaroon cake, for which St. Emilion is well known.

It is an understatement to say such a meal is an occasion. With much lively conversation between courses it occupied us for three hours. The ease and delight with which so much good food could be consumed was stimulated by the wines. We began with a three-year-old Saint Christophe from St. Emilion, to illustrate how drinkable and pleasant the St. Emilion wines are when young. Their faster-maturing qualities are quite different from the Medoc wines, partly accounted for by the higher percentage of Merlot grape in the grape mix. Then Michel Becot opened a 1945 Beausejour, which was a magnificent wine, robust yet subtle, authoritative yet delicate. The year 1945 stood out on the vintage charts. Becot swirled the wine on his tongue, savoring every drop of it. This was a moment when the spirited man in the tennis shoes and the printed T-shirt turned suddenly grave, as if we had passed an ecclesiastical monument. I was reminded of his comment, “Churches are the dead monuments of St. Emilion, wines are the living monuments.”

Raising his glass, Becot said, “We will occasionally taste wines the equal of this bottle, but there are none better.”

He added that the wild mushrooms and this 1945 bottle were a fitting marriage.

As I sorted impressions on the road back to Bordeaux from St. Emilion, I could not help but feel that this was a special day to be alive.

GRAVE AND SAUTERNE

The next day there lay before us the third region, south-east of Bordeaux, known as Grave and Sauterne.

Grave, as the word indicates, salutes once again the gravelly soil that is so highly thought of in Bordeaux. Grave begins right at the edge of the city where Chateau Haut-Brion stands, the one property whose vines are more valuable than the buildings that could be constructed on this urban land. When the great Medoc wines were classified in 1855, the Bordeaux wine people included this one Grave holding at the top of the list, though it was not in the Medoc. Grave was, historically, the earliest and the most prominent of the Bordeaux wine-growing areas, but by the 18th century a political shift in Bordeaux emphasized the wines of the Medoc. Grave fell into a decline from which it is only now recovering.

Unlike the Medoc or St. Emilion, Grave produces a red and a white wine, the white from Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes. The more northerly vineyards tend to produce dry whites, while the southerly favor the sweeter whites made famous in neighboring Sauterne.

Our first stop was Chateau Carbonnieux and a visit with the cellarmaster. Carbonnieux produces 50 percent red, 50 percent white, about 33,000 gallons each annually. The measurements for wine production in Bordeaux are in liters, or hundred liters, hectoliters, so Carbonnieux’s annual production is expressed: 1,300 hectoliters of each.

The cellarmaster showed us the cement vats where he ferments the red, leaving the skins with the juice for three weeks. He ferments the white in stainless steel tanks where the temperature can be controlled, unlike some other white wine producers, such as Chateau d’Yquem, which ferment the white right in the barrel it will age in. Carbonnieux’s reds are 60 percent Cabernet, 30 percent Merlot, and 10 percent Cabernet Franc.

“To make a great wine in Grave we need much sun,” said the cellarmaster, as we tasted his dry, clean white and his agreeable red. “Plus no rain at the wrong times, as the flowers set or as we harvest. The gravel soil here is especially good for our white wines. Soil here is made of light sand and stone. Sauvignon grapes give to the white a wild, fresh, and nervous taste. Semillon gives the white more roundness, a more subdued taste, and some sweetness. The mixture of the two makes a pleasing wine. Sauvignon alone would be too wild. Cabernet Sauvignon gives the red its color, tannin, and strength. Merlot adds to the red more sweetness, suppleness, roundness, and lightness.”

A humorous story is sometimes told about Carbonnieux. Fathers of the Abbey of Sainte-Croix, the owners, ambitious to spread the wine’s use, introduced it to the Sultan of Turkey. Aware of the Islamic interdict against alcohol, they labeled the wine Carbonnieux Mineral Water. The Sultan took a taste, liked it, and ordered some, adding, “If the French mineral water is so good, why do they take the trouble to make wine?”

We then drove south to see Jean Kressman, who owns Chateau Latour-Martillac. Kressman’s family has been in the wine business for generations in Bordeaux, but only in 1928 did they turn from being shippers to growers. Kressman heads a trade organization of Grave growers.

“Our biggest challenge is identity,” he said. “The consumer ordering a Grave white doesn’t know if it will be sweet or dry. I am pushing for an Haut Grave designation for the 100 growers in the north who, like myself, make a dry white wine, vs. the 400 growers in the south of the district who make a sweet white.”

Kressman’s operation is a mixture of tradition and innovation. He is an organic farmer, using no pesticides and depending only on cow manure to fertilize the vines. Though this process is now more expensive, he feels it is superior to using synthetic fertilizers. Until 1969 he did all the work with horses, but now he uses tractors. A tractor can accomplish in 3/4 of an hour, he said, the job a horse could do in three days. Using tractors he has cut his work staff from 13 to 8.

On the technical side of winemaking, he has been an experimenter. Kressman designed a special large, slow screw mechanism for moving grapes into the crushing and fermenting vat without bruising them. He also developed special carts for bringing the grapes in from the fields without bruising the berries. Because of these techniques he was able, starting in 1974, to produce wine without adding the sulphur commonly used to prevent oxidation of broken berries. Kressman feels that he can produce a better wine by eliminating the sulphur.

Kressman sees all the wines of the Bordeaux region as important.

“Bordeaux wines are like a deck of playing cards,” he said. “You need all of them to play.”

He offered an amusing and insightful way of characterizing Bordeaux reds with the imagery of playing cards.

“To me the reds of Grave are the great kings,” he said. “The reds of the Medoc are the delicious queens, and the reds of St. Emilion are the witty jacks.”

In the last century, he pointed out, Grave reds were thought by some to be the longest lasting of the Bordeaux reds.

Growing grapes here is always a chancy affair, he added. Rains during the harvest have sometimes caused his berries to burst, reducing the crop by a third. Graves ripen 10 days before Medocs and are less subject to buffeting sea storms. Making wine becomes a less and less profitable activity in Bordeaux each year, he felt.

“There are always new regulations,” he said. “For example, the Brussels market requires that I bottle here at my house rather than at my facility in Bordeaux, which ups my expenses.”

Kressman follows the legacy of his grandfather, who began in Bordeaux as a shipper. He is pleased that all of his six children take an interest in wine. His youngest son is cellarmaster at the chateau.

As we walked through his vineyards, I asked why roses were planted at the ends of his vine rows. I had seen this same practice throughout the Medoc and St. Emilion, but not in Burgundy, the Mosel, or in California. He explained that certain pests, such as oidium, a mildew fungus, attack the roses before the vines. When the roses become infected, preventive strategies are used to save the vines. When no pests are present, the roses are maintained as an attractive presence in the vineyard.

Our last stop in Bordeaux was, appropriately, the dessert for this gustatory pilgrimage. We went to an appointment with the manager of Chateau d’Yquem, producer of a sweet white wine that some connoisseurs consider the ultimate wine-drinking experience. Among the sweet Sauterne wines, d’Yquem was rated highest in 1855 and continues to enjoy the top reputation in the region.

The area of Sauterne, we found, is a pleasant circuit of small back roads to drive.

At the House of Wine in Bordeaux the traveler can obtain maps of Grave and Sauterne, then follow the road signs to see all the principal chateaux.

Chateau d’Yquem looks the part, featuring a prominent and ancient, almost fairytale castle, overlooking a sweeping vista of vines extending toward the Garonne River, a tributary of the Gironde. Anyone can drive to d’Yquem and walk the grounds. With advance arrangement a tour of the cellars is possible. On the alternately rainy and sunny day in August that we visited, workers were patiently cultivating the vineyards to reduce weeds.

The turreted chateau on a rising hill is a beautiful building that contrasts with the mere barns that are sometimes associated with the name “chateau” in Bordeaux. Many of the art objects and wine-related graphics on display are the property of the Lur-Saluces family, which has owned d’Yquem since 1786.

The wines of Sauterne are produced in a unique way. In the Garonne River microclimate autumn mists alternate with sun over the fields. These conditions stimulate a kind of mold, botrytis cinerea, sometimes called “noble rot” to distinguish it from the ordinary gray rot that destroys grapes. The botrytis mold shrivels the grape volume to as little as 20 percent of the original size and concentrates the sugar level so that the juice pressed from the grapes has a high sugar level. At d’Yquem the 320 miles of grape vines are harvested by hand sometimes as many as five times during the fall season as individual clusters or even individual berries achieve this shriveled state. The final volume of wine amounts to only one glass per year per vine, perhaps 20 barrels of wine on a big harvest day, only 80,000 bottles per year from 225 acres of vines. The procedure is extremely costly, of course, but the resulting wine attains a full alcoholic level and yet retains a high residual sugar taste. A glass of this wine is an exquisite experience.

The same type of noble rot sometimes occurs in the Mosel or Rhine in Germany and in Monterey Valley in California, but growers there have more options open to them. The Mosel winemaker can harvest his grapes at any of several levels of sugar attainment before they shrivel, making fine wine. So can the California grower. But the identity of d’Yquem is such that if this sweet wine is not achieved, there is no other alternative, there is no d’Yquem, and indeed in the years 1964 and 1972 there was no d’Yquem because the harvest was either lost completely or was of insufficiently high quality to merit the name d’Yquem. Another difference between Sauterne and the other wine areas is the grape variety. At d’Yquem and throughout the Sauterne the grape used is Semillon and Sauvignon. D’Yquem has 80 percent Semillon, 20 percent Sauvignon.

I asked the manager why he thought d’Yquem wines were ranked higher in 1855 and continue to be valued higher than any other Sauterne.

“Vinting skills of other growers are as good as ours,” he said. “But I think we have a special quality because our large vineyard has three types of soil. We have some clay, some loam, and some very deep gravel. Because we are a large holding and can blend grapes from these three parcels, which each have component tastes, our wines achieve a peak the others don’t.”

After surveying the fields we entered the cellars to see d’Yquem wine, which is started in new barrels with each vintage. Fermentation takes place right in the small barrels, not in a large stainless steel tank. Of the wine in the barrels, when bottling time comes three years after the vintage, only a portion will merit the label d’Yquem.

“In some vintages only 30 percent will get the title d’Yquem,” said the manager. “In an easy year perhaps 80 percent of the wine will be called d’Yquem.”

The rejected wine is sold in bulk to a Bordeaux bottler who, pledged to secrecy as to the source, can only sell the wine as regional Sauternes.

Once d’Yquem is bottled, the wine has unsurpassed longevity.

“There is almost no limit to the aging,” said the manager. “The 1892 d’Yquem is now younger than the 1963.”

At the end of the cellar, on a white table, stood several bottles of this glory of France, a 1971 that we were to taste and a 1945 that showed the deep golden color aged d’Yquem achieves. The manager poured the glasses, and we slowly sipped the nectar, watching the “legs,” as the alcoholic viscosity on the sides of the glass is sometimes called. The wine was as pleasing a balance of acid and sweetness as I have tasted. Luscious, delicious, perfumed, almost auburn in color, it looked like a jewel in the glass and left a memory in the taste long to be savored.

So ended, with a d’Yquem dessert, our gustatory pilgrimage to Bordeaux. I urge anyone with an interest in food and wine to re-create, when the time is right for them, this Bordeaux adventure.

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BORDEAUX: IF YOU GO

For further information, contact the French Government Tourist Office, 444 Madison Ave., 16th Floor, New York, NY 10022-6903; 212/838-7800; www.francetourism.com.

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5. Chile’s Wine Country

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Copyright © 2012 Lee Foster, Foster Travel Publishing. All rights reserved.

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