Immaculately groomed vineyards awaited us, steeped in a history of grape cultivation that has led to the production of many vintage red Medoc-Bordeaux wines during the last few centuries.
We began our tour of Medoc by driving through the small villages and family run chateau's to one of the larger chateau's in which we were lucky enough to have a tour on. Although the tour was in French, sometimes it was translated to German or English (basically, when they wanted to tell us - how "much greater" their wine producing methods were in comparison to others).
Unfortunately, we were unable to taste the wine as they only do that on the weekends by appointment, and were there on a Thursday. The chateau was no longer family run, it was owned by 3 corporations, a Japanese company, a German and a French company and no-one lived in this gorgeous chateau either which was a bit sad. The gardens were beautifully maintained and had a lawn with a view to the river.
Inside the chateau was just as cool, there was the old castle bit - where they keep all the old/vintage bottles of wine - for example, there were wines from 1971 onwards and there were over 5000 bottles in that part. It was interesting to go through a chateau, however the way they produce and make wine are much the same as in Australia.
We followed up our visit to the Medoc by having a picnic lunch by the river. It was a magical day.
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