The Grandest Crus Are in Bordeaux

Fresh from a good night's sleep (meaning we passed out drinking some very tasty Bordeauxs...) Jeremy and I hopped into the car and drove outside of the town of Bordeaux and into the country of Bordeaux. Saint Emilion here we come!

It was a good day. A beautiful day. The town of Saint Emilion is about as far from the city of Bordeaux as the town of Sonoma is from San Francisco. So the fact that most of the wineries are only open for tasting Mondays through Fridays really surprised us! However, the fact that the wineries aren't really equipped for tasting is what surprised us most.

Thinking we knew how to do things, we walked into our first cave and immediately poured ourselves a glass of Grand Cru. Well, let me rephrase that. Actually, NICOLE poured Grand Cru all over the floor of the cave. We hadn't even had a sip of wine yet, so this mishap cannot be chalked up to Nicole's drunkenness. It was a case of classic Nicole Clumsiness. And of course, it brought attention onto ourselves. Next thing we know, we're getting yelled at in French by the boy who runs the cave.

Apparently, in Bordeaux, you have to ASK to taste the wine. This is not the case in Bourgogne (Burgundy). And when I mentioned THAT to the boy who ran our cave, I definitely further pissed him off. We tried to make peace by buying a couple of bottles. We think it worked...

After lunch at a cafe, in which we sat next to two men from Auburn, CA (which is on the way to Tahoe from San Francisco) we headed back to Bordeaux to see the Stage 18 finish. Cavendish, the man with short arms from the Isle of Man, again, took the stage. I believe it was his 13th stage win in all of his appearances in Le Tour. We find this amazing, as we have said, this man has the SHORTEST ARMS EVER. But really, you don't need arms to cycle.

We met up with two friends who live in London for dinner, at which Jeremy dined on more animal organs. This time, he had cow kidneys, which he was told are "very special" in France. Note to self, anything described as very special in the future should be avoided at all costs. We try very hard to embrace the culture of the towns in which we travel, but I believe we draw the lines at kidneys. At least we had a very delicious bottle of Bordeaux in which to wash it all down, right? A sante!

2010-07-22 - Bordeaux