Wine School

Last Thursday we attended ‘Wine School’ for a 2 hour lesson.

All the wine shops in St. Emilion resemble the lower ground floor at Harrods….the Food Hall……

They have many unique decanters and glasses for sale alongside the row upon row of bottles of Grands Crus Classes (that means flipping expensive to you and me!).

Some of the shops are quite intimidating; you feel you should know your Merlot from your Cabernet Franc with your eyes shut. Nearly all of them have beautifully written signs outside inviting you to ‘Entre Libre, degustation’…but you get the feeling that the tasting would lead to either buying some very expensive wine way beyond what we would feel happy paying for a bottle, or the embarrassment of leaving swiftly when you catch sight of the price.

Going to ‘wine school’ has given us the basic information to at least understand what the vendors are expecting from us. We also got a lot more from it……………..

………we have always bought wine to drink and enjoy, because that’s what we think it’s there for, but here in St Emilion we have found out that, leaving aside Table Wine (which our tutor dismissed as being not worth drinking), in the Bordeaux region the Merlot grapes grown on the ‘Right Bank’ of the Gironde and the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grown on the ‘Left bank’ are all about creating a drink which can be left to mature for up to 30 years. But we’re getting too old to want to wait that long!

We also learnt a lot about vintages and what it is that makes a good year – apparently 2009 looks like being one of the best ever vintages but it will be at least 10 years before they can be certain!

We were guided through the smells and aromas that can be found in wine, some more welcome than others, and finally we got to taste some. We were expertly guided through the process and it made us realise just how many visual and olfactory clues there are to how good a wine is going to be before you get anywhere near tasting it. The only downside when we got to actually taste the wines was that we were encouraged to spit them out so that the alcohol intake didn’t affect our judgement. However, the tutor saved the best wine to taste until last which meant that everyone made sure they swallowed that one!

We’ve always realised that wine is a very important part of French life and culture but visiting St Emilion has opened our eyes to the extent of importance placed on growing the right grapes in the right region, taking all the factors into account, the soil, the micro-climate etc. to produce the best that can be made from the raw ingredients. Quite eye opening really, when all we’ve wanted is something to drink that tastes good and gets you merry at the same time!

We have bought and drunk some expensive wines here, and we can’t deny that you drink them with reverence and slowly to enjoy every mouthful, but if we’re totally honest, we think drinking wine in good company is more important than the quality of the wine.

So when we return home you can be sure we will be sharing a bottle or 2 while you listen to the bits of our adventure that didn’t make it to the blog!