St Emilion – 20 May 2010
Those of you who thought we would never “do the vineyards” can now rest easy. St Emilion is one of the centres of the Bordeaux wine region and with Sue, John and Shelley we journeyed to explore, imbibe and buy. St Emilion is a very striking town indeed. The town itself is ancient and prides itself on a Monolithic Church (ie. underground for you ignoramuses), with accompanying catacombs in which are buried male dignataries and male babies. (Women were not considered to have souls in the 9th-10th centuries so were not buried there). The Church is a massive structure some 100 meters high at its highpoint. It was built after a local noble had returned to the area via Greece from the Crusades and was inspired by their monoliths. Unfortunately photos were forbidden so we are unable to show any. There are photos of the exterior though. The Church is now only used twice a year once to celebrate the beginning of the harvest and tasting the previous year’s vintage and then at the end of the harvest. The area around St Emilion is, as you would imagine, covered in vineyards behind stone fences. We drove around looking for vineyards that were open so we could taste the fruit of the vine but alas even though there were ‘ouvert’ signs the vineyards were indeed ‘ferme’. We were too early in the season. However back in the town we came upon a rather large cave which housed the fruit of one of the vineyards and were were given a very informative tour of the cave. Of course after a couple of tastings we just had to buy a bottle or two. The weather was great as it has been now for a while. Temperatures in the mid to upper 20’s. They say a cold spell is coming though. So after a great day in St Emilion we all returned back to Gardes.