Ryan's Bordeaux Blog

After sleeping off most of the fatigue following all of the traveling the previous day, I made the trek up to Chateau Camarsac for the first time with Nathanael from his Bordeaux apartment. I have to say that the place is even more stunningly beautiful than what I'd seen from the pictures thus far.

Along with the promise of lodging I found that the promise of food was also fulfilled as I found that fridge was fairly well stocked with most of the essentials. French essentials, I guess, as I'm not sure who the hell is going to help me eat the bewildering amount of compte, camembert, and emmental... I'm not complaining, though.

After I was given some time to get settled in my new lodgings Nathanael showed me around the cellar, where the wine is kept in barriques and oak barrels with a variety toasting levels. Nathanael also let me know that the oak barrels are bought after being used twice, and then we use them an additional 2-3 times and then sell them off. The wine is classified as Bordeaux Superior, by the way. I was amused to learn that they also employ micro-oxygenation techniques for some cuvees - Michael Rolland strikes again! The tour was completed as Nathanael showed me to the office and tasting area, where he poured me the the rose, the clairet (not to be confused with claret), and three cuvees of the Bordeaux blend (claret). All of the wines he poured me had been opened at least a few days and pretty much gone, so I'll reserve judgment for the time being. The best claret, though, was by far the last one... As oxidized as they all were.

At this point I was then introduced to Sylvie, the PR and HR manager. She didn't speak english quite as well as Nathanael but we managed to understand each other. As I was helping Sylvie do a few administrative things a couple came in and began tasting the various wines. After being introduced and chatting for a few minutes it came up that I'm a physics student and I learned that the wife was married to a physicist who had a hand in discovering the lepton. Crazy! She actually knew the whole gang from Princeton's Advanced Institute of Study and most particle physicist pioneers from that era personally. Among them were Gell-Mann and ... and even physics folk hero and nobel laureate Richard Feynman!

After spending some time walking around and taking shots of the castle and surrounding landscape, Nathanael asked me if I wanted to come with him to a small house on the edge of the property. Apparantly the guy who's renting it from Thierry called because a huge snake had slithered into his shed and I guess he wanted help with it. So, I jumped into the car with camera in hand ready to document the battle with the beast.


Clearing out the entire shed there was a lot of french explitives and dancing around by a recoiling tenant after poking random objects with his shovel. The snake was nowhere to be found though, and after returning to the car with Nathanael he let me know that the only other possible place the snake could be was the roof. Bon chance, monsieur!