We were debating whether to leave the train station area, go downtown, or go somewhere else for lunch, as our tour was leaving at 2pm. I Googled good places to eat, and this restaurant called La Tupina kept popping up on ALL the sites with good reviews. We decided we had to go there, regardless of what it was, and walked the 15 minutes there. Turns out it is slightly fancy, but really known for its traditional French country cooking. The chef is apparently very committed to old style, southeastern French food. The restaurant was very rustic, with legit pots and pans over a fire that people were cooking out of. The food was covered in gravy, but it was amazing. We didn't get wine or anything, because we were doing a wine tasting in a couple hours. We were kind of worried about the time, too, so we were very un-French and rushed through our meal.
We thought we were so golden, leaving the restaurant at 1:25pm to make it back in time for our 2pm wine tour. Turns out the meeting point was somewhere COMPLETELY different, in the city center, not at the train station like I thought. (I have no idea why I thought it was at the train station, but whatever). We had a minor freakout, and then asked a taxi driver how long it would take to get there by cab. He said 10-15 minutes, and so we hopped in and arrived safely at 1:55pm.
We stood on the corner waiting for awhile, awkwardly trying to figure out who else was on the tour. When the minivan finally pulled up, we realized everything was a lot more disorganized than we thought it would be. The ticket said it had to be printed, but we only had it on email. We worried, but the lady barely cared. Soon, me, Shuli, another girl studying abroad (turns out she's in the NYU program! Who knew?), her mother, and two South African 20-something guys were on our way to the Medoc region of Bordeaux. Once we got to the legit wine country, everything was so pretty. There was those perfect French clouds, and acres and acres of grapes.
We got out at Chateau Terte, the chateau we were going to be touring, in the Margaux area of Medoc, of Bordeaux. In Margaux, there's an ancient classification of wineries based on the quality of soil (Grand Cru Classees). Chateau Tertre, was in the last one, and even though it's not based on the wine, just the quality of the soil, we were starting to realize that this what you get for choosing the cheapest wine tour. We walked around the Chateau while our tour guide went to go find the tour guide for the chateau.
After wandering around the Chateau and sitting for 45 minutes, we were starting to realize this tour was a little ghetto. But it was okay, because we were still in a fucking beautiful chateau in Bordeaux. Finally our tour guide found the chateau tour guide (after we had a very awkward conversation with the chef of the Chateau), and she rushed us through the tour of the wine making process because we started so late. But that's okay, because all I really cared about was the wine tasting -- I wasn't so stoked to spend hours walking around cellars anyways. A quick tour was all I needed.
Then it was time for wine tasting. We got to try both of the Chateau's wines, the one that is aged less and the one that is aged more. Both were pretty decent. While we were all sitting around, I was eavesdropping on our two tour guides talking in French -- the tour guide for the whole day basically did a job interview and then hired the Chateau tour guide (who was almost out of a job, because wine touring season ended with the end of the harvest). So funny. The cute Chateau tour guide also let us all try some extra wines that the last tour group had left behind, because otherwise they would be thrown out. These were 1998 and 2001's, instead of 2007 and 2009, and you could taste the difference.
Then we had a very bumpy ride to the wine tourism center, where more wine tasting was to go down. The host there sat us down at a table, and poured us each six glasses of wine to taste -- a white and five reds. Even though this wasn't a chateau or anything, it was nice to be able to try wines from all over Bordeaux, and not just the one winery who was trying to sell you wine. Our host spoke amazing English, and was kind of drunk as he had been tasting wine all day there too. It was pretty hilarious. He was also talking to our tour guide in French about how the sommelier got fired. I love eavesdropping. He let us try some more white, and then we all wandered around and looked at their cellars. I ended up buying the white and one of the reds that we tried. Too bad I can't bring them back to the states :(. The host from the wine tourism center also told me and Shuli to "vote yes" in California, because he was from Amsterdam...hahaha.
At last, we returned to Bordeaux. I was pretty beat at this point. We had about an hour before our train left, so we went to go track down these wine macarons that the girl on our tour had told us about. We got there and realized, no, just because they are deep red/purple does not mean they are wine...they were just myrtille. stupid. But still delicious. The shop did have these amazing pastries that I'd heard about though: Kouginettes. They're made with leftover egg yolks from the wine-making process (traditionally, you use egg whites in barrels to capture the extra sediment), and were so good. Satisfied, we took the really awesome Bordeaux tram back to the station...only to find that our train was delayed 30 minutes. We made it back to Paris around midnight, I said goodbye to Shuli, and I fell sound asleep.
Sunday and Monday were my recovery days. Very much needed, as it had been a crazy and exhausting week. But I'm seeing Sam Rohman tonight after my midterm, and then LONDON on Thursday. SO excited.
Some other pictures of Bordeaux:
I wish I could have stayed longer than a day trip. Such a charming city.
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