In September we have a three day wine tour of Bordeaux where half a day is dedicated to manual labour in the vineyard: harvesting grapes.
This is a tour that we currently offer on our scheduled program for Scandinavian wine travellers and that we offer as custom tour in English. But don’t worry – we have other things to offer you. Read on!
This Bordeaux tour includes one half day of harvest at a wine château, where we also get a quick introduction in how you evaluate if the grapes (and stalks!) are ripe and how to do the sorting of the grapes to increase the wine quality. (If it’s raining we may do a blending exercise in the winery instead…)
The tour also includes two exceptional lunches. Not that the third one is particularly humble but the two are rather special. One is a gastronomic voyage with sweet sauternes wines all through the meal! We will see how that works with about a dozen different dishes – which food and wine pairing works best? It is much, much better that one would think! We promise. The wines we taste is a series of sauternes wines from the same château – we start with a young wine and go back through vintages. The other extraordinary lunch is in the private dining room of a château where we will be served a lunch prepared by the house chef (I guess we should say chateau chef) who sometimes works at a Michelin starred restaurant (well, actually two different ones). Utterly delicious, starting with some champagne as aperitif and then a series of wines from the chateau.
But apart from these gastronomic, let’s not say excesses but rather feasts, and the harvesting we will of course also have a number of exciting winery visits with private tastings. We will show both some of the famous names as well as some smaller, family-owned estates. In most cases we will be received at the winery either by the owner or the winemakers – they all know us so they receive us as old friends bringing their friends.
But to tell you the truth – you don’t have to be sorry about missing the harvest work. The English language wine tour to Bordeaux that we have scheduled for September 19-23 is pretty much identical, except for the half day harvest, which is only on the Scandinavian scheduled tour. You know how the Scandinavians love outdoor life! (But of course we can do it for you too if you really want!)
Read more about the Bordeaux tour – during harvest time – in September here.
