Labarde

This morning we headed out to a very famous wine region of Bordeaux, the Medoc, where the famous Château Margaux, amongst others, is located. Our “pilot” Luc picked us up from our apartment at the allotted time. He was full of life, very funny, suave and very handsome, and was a wonderful guide for our trip. I was lucky enough to spend the whole tour in the sidecar (thanks Ian), which was very comfortable, while Ian got to ride pillion behind Luc - he reported it was okay but you had to hang on and concentrate, and it was a little hard on the hips. Luc is retired. He used to be in the French airforce and, besides planes, his other love is motorcycles.

We headed off from Bordeaux along the left bank of the Garonne river with blue skies and sunshine. Then, the initial part outside of Bordeaux but was quite foggy and cloudy, and a little bit chilly on the motorbike - luckily I had a blanket. But by the time we reached the Margaux sub-region of the Medoc, the sun had broken through and the weather was glorious.

Our first stop was Château Dauzac, currently owned by Christian Roulleau, an entrepreneur from Bretagne. Our guide Jade was very knowledgeable; she had a Masters in Wine and Viticulture. She had only been at Château Dauzac for 5 days, but was able to answer all our questions and her explanation of the operations was very comprehensive. The Château mainly grows Cabernet Sauvignon (69%), supplemented with 29% Merlot and 2% Petit-Verdot. This reflects the ‘Bordeaux blend’ which is made in the Medoc, which is very cab sav forward.

We tasted two wines with Jade and they were very generous serves indeed (basically full glasses), so we were off to a good start and it was only about 10:30 am. Luckily, Luc had popped into the village and bought a croissant for each of us, which was greatly appreciated after all the wine we had consumed. The wine was very good indeed, that is why it went down the hatch and not in the spittoon!

Château Dauzac has a rich history and is an aesthetically pleasing Château which has been well maintained. There are beautiful works of art in the barrel cellar, which I really liked. Here we also encountered something we had not previously seen before, barrels that had tape and shrink wrap over the cork. It turns out that they were for Kosher wine - a Rabbi and his team come in and handle all aspects of the wine making and, once sealed, it cannot be touched again. At Château Dauzac there were around 50 barrels taped up and each barrel contains the equivalent of 300 bottles of wine. And, all these barrels were for one Jewish family from New York. A very wealthy family, as this Kosher process increases the cost of the wine fivefold!Read more