Next Stop Château Haut-Breton

We were back on the bike cruising through the beautiful Medoc, heading to our next tour and wine tasting. Our second winery, Château Haut-Breton, was a much smaller operation and is owned by a Belgian family. Our guide, Hippolyte, was a 17 year old student having a gap year before doing his Baccalaureate, as he really doesn’t know what he wants to do. He was a bit nervous as this was his first tour. In addition to Ian and I, there was a group of five young poms who were very nice. Hippolyte had undertaken a range of roles at the Cháteau, including assisting with the harvest, cleaning the insides of the concrete storage tanks (you have to climb inside), and helping with the sorting the grapes.

On the tour we also learnt about the selection of the oak for the barrels from various regions and the toasting of the barrels. Both can have an impact on the taste of the wine. There are a number of different levels of toasting from Low Toast (LT), Medium Toast (MT), to Medium Toast Plus (MT+), etc. Wine making is a very complex business with many variables - we are much happier just tasting and consuming the end product, a somewhat easier task.

After the tour, we tasted a number of wines, which were all very good. We also learnt a couple of new terms to describe wines - the first a “Netflix wine”, easy drinking while watching Netflix and gone before you know it - the second was referred to as an “Oopsie wine” - again very easy drinking and finished before you know it! We have noticed that many of the Châteaux do half bottles, as there is a lot more demand for this in France. We think is great, as it is difficult to carry full bottles when travelling.Read more