Ryan's Bordeaux Blog

Thanks to everyone for all the really positive feedback from the blog. Here are a few extra pictures that didn't make it into last week's blog. The tower in 2 of these pictures is actually a pigeon house that is several hundred years old.

Wednesday morning I showed up in the middle of the courtyard at 7:30 am and ready for work as I'd been asked the night before. I met Habier and Jacqueline and got started in the vineyard, where over the past few days we've been pruning the vines and adjusting the training wires, which are held up by posts stuck in the ground every 3-4 vines, so that the branches which are to bear the grapes are encouraged to grow up, not out.

These two may not look like much but when it comes to vineyard work they can really move. Habier and Jacqueline speak 100% french, so communication in any great detail is a challenge. Although with patience, my limited (but slowly progressing) french, and some acting out of certain words (the glue that holds my frenglish together), we manage.

Later in the day on Wednesday after a short nap I met up with Nathanael, as I usually do at least once each day, and we got to talking about modes of transportation. Nathanael told me that they have a car on the property that I could use. Enter my adversary:



My first car was a dream to drive... A '92 Lexus SC400, and so I feel that somehow karma has come back to bite me in the ass on this one. The problem is, it has a manual transmission like most cars in Europe do. Since I hadn't learned to drive standard up until this point I spent the rest of the early evening driving around the courtyard and surrounding property. The real challenge, though, came when Nathanael asked me to drive him to the nearest gas station, about 14 km away, so he could fill the thing up with gas. The ride was fairly uneventful until immediately after he finished filling the gas tank there were several tries before changing gears from neutral to first until finally the car lurched forward into first and with a quick whiff of burnt rubber and transmission fluid we were off.

Thursday (from 7:30 to 3:30) was much the same as far as my vineyard work was concerned, only this time I was keeping up with the ladies much better. Thursday evening I took a walk down the road from Chateau Camarsac and snapped a few pictures from a distance:


A short while after I got back there was a knock at the door and I was slightly surprised to find Thierry Lurton (the boss, and member of the influential Lurton family) waiting there. He explained that he was there to take me back to his house for dinner, which was even more of a shock because apparantly through a mistranslation I had thought it was Friday that I was invited to his place for dinner. On the car ride over there was sporadic conversation and it came up that he will try to get me a tour of Chateau Cheval Blanc with his cousin Piere Lurton, and he'll also see about getting me a pass to vinexpo, which is a big wine event for professionals, held in Bordeaux. Although I'm excited about both of them, I can't even express how incredible a tour of the hollowed grounds (and possible tasting) of Cheval Blanc with Pierre Lurton (the guy that got me into wine) would be. After arriving at his house we were warmly greeted by his very friendly and precocious children. One of his adorable 8 year old daughters took me by the hand and showed me around their incredible house, which appears to be some kind of 16'th century stone building that has been converted into a very modern home. This same daughter seems to have taken a bit of a shine to me, I'm afraid. Anyway, after the kids were in bed Thierry, his wife, and I sat out on the veranda and enjoyed an incredible meal of salad, quiche, steak, a cheese course, and some fresh starberries and raspberries. Throughout the meal we drank his 2007 Chateau Camarsac Rose, which is actually one of the best roses I've ever had, and very appropriate for this time of year. In the North American market your average wine consumer confuses roses with the cheaply made and mass produced pink crap known as White Zinfandel that you can find the 'I have $10 and I'm a chick who wants get tanked' crowd slogging on weekends, and so they don't take these wines very seriously just because they're also rose coloured. The truth is, the crisp roses produced in Bordeaux, Provence, the Rhone, and elsewhere are serious wines and can be excellent with the right meal on a nice summer night like the one we were having. Along with the wonderful meal I got to pick his brain about wine and there ensued some excellent conversation, with me asking his thoughts on Robert Parker, the image that he has for his wine, and his favorite Bordeaux appellation (which is Margaux, for those who are interested). Thierry has a very humble nature - he's very easy to talk to and he likes to laugh, but when talking about wine he's deadly serious and has some very intelligent things to say. I like him.

On Friday I was working in the vineyards again, but this time it was only Habier and I. Work was finished at 2:30 that day and later in the evening there was to be a small party of the townspeople of Camarsac, which Thierry and familly as well as Habeir and familly and I attended. After arriving I found the townsfolk were very friendly and we ate lots of good food.

On the weekend I got a chance to sleep in and spent time on the computer catching up with friends and family. I had a nice dinner on Saturday night, which took place just outside house:


I had some wine and have started reading Rene Decartes' Discourse on Method and Related Writings.

On Sunday shortly after I awoke Mideaux (Habier's husband), came knocking at my door. Mideaux manages the tasting room on weekends and has been living with his Morrocan family in a section of the castle wall for quite a long time.


They have 3 children (all around my age) and extended familly in Chicago and their youngest son is actually quite good at english. Mideaux is very funny because we'll be walking somewhere or in the middle of doing something and he'll literally stop me in my tracks and ask me to repeat an english sentence in french, or vice versa (because he's taking an english class). This is why I've coined him with the nickname "La Professeur" and usually exclaim it loudly when we meet. Anyway, the reason why he was at my door was to invite me to a big meal in the courtyard where we were joined by another family (friends of theirs) and enjoyed a wonderful lunch that included fruit, some sort of seafood salad which was quite good, home made morrocan bread, couscous with chicken and venegable stew, Habier's baking, as well as Morrocan tea afterward. Morrocan tea is definitely something I'll be taking home with me - it's very easy and yet very very good. Essentially all you do is boil fresh mint leaves and add a little green tea and voila, Morrocan tea. Mideaux uses the fresh mint growing around my doorstep (and in the herb garden he's got going there too) and the tea is wonderfully fragrant and very very good.

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!

After a nervous 7.5 hour plane ride wherein (half distracted) I was able to eyeball "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Grand Torino," I landed in Paris at approx. 11:30 am on Monday morning. I didn't have too much trouble finding my way to the TGV train station in the Bordeaux airport where I waited for the 1:37 pm train and slogged my all luggage aboard and got settled, where, after four more hours and drifting in and out of consciousness I finally arrived in Bordeaux.

Nathanael, my contact at the chateau with whom I've traded many emails and was very glad to finally see, picked me up from the train station with one of his daughters. They took me back to their incredible apartment in the middle of downtown Bordeaux where I was able to get a quick shower and change of clothes, then after meeting his lovely wife and the rest of his children it was off on bikes to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. At this point I was already sold on the place. When we got back we sat outside on his patio and enjoyed a glass of beer with his wife making brief appearances. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner outside on the patio, and afterward Nathanael gave me a bike tour of downtown Bordeaux. In the course of our conversation he told me that Thierry Lurton dispatched an email to his brothers and sisters about my arrival and says I'll be doing everything from hard labor to working in their cellar...

My interest in wine actually began with a chance encounter. I was hooked after being present for an event held at a private restaurant that I was working at where I had the incredible opportunity to hear Pierre Lurton speak and taste some Cheval Blanc and Yquem. Shortly afterward I began collecting, going to tastings, reading, and attending "offlines" with a great group from Toronto. I came by this wonderful opportunity to work in Bordeaux at Chateau Camarsac for Thierry Lurton after making a connection through my boss while working at a wine retail shop in Calgary last summer. After a fairly grueling year in physics I'm ecstatic for what the next three months has in store for me.