Saint-Émilion is the perfect day-trip from Bordeaux city and a great way to sample the best of the region – the wine! We took the train out on a stunning winter’s day and had fun biking around on a self-guided (and only slightly wobbly) tour.
The beautiful Bordeaux train station
Our long weekend in Bordeaux wouldn’t be complete without a trip to some of the many nearby vineyards that have made the region so famous. You can drive yourself out there, or if you’re planning to sample a few wines, there’s many tour companies offering the complete experience. However we opted to take things at our own pace, and so caught the train out through the beautiful countryside to Saint-Émilion. It only took an hour and meant we had the flexibility to sit in the sun and have a lovely lunch with my friend Kara, who lives locally, before jumping on our bikes.
Walking into Saint-Émilion from the train
We hired bikes from the central tourist office – we’d pre-booked them so it was just a matter of picking it all up and grabbing a map of the many local vineyards. My sister Zoe, currently living in Lyon, had also organised us an unusual form of wine tasting to start, and so we headed out to Chateau Cormeil-Figeac for our adventure in wine blending!
Just a few options!
Rather than simply sampling the experts’ work, wine blending allowed us to take a few different vintages and create our own individual blends. The various wines were either 2015 or 2016 and kept in either metal or oak barrels, so there was a range of light to heavy wines to mix. Of course, we had to sample them all first to see what we were working with!
Zoe and I pretty excited at the prospect of creating our own perfect wines
Vintners at work
Bottling my finished product!
Gorgeous views on the way to our next winery
Chateau Tour Grand Faurie – great wines and a cute dog!
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We returned our bikes to Saint-Émilion as the winter sunshine was fast disappearing, and relaxed in the town square, wholly content with our day of exploring.
My bottle – pretty happy with my wine name!
I don’t think a visit to the Bordeaux region would be complete without sampling some of the local wines, and catching the train and then biking was perfect for us. It let us take things at our own pace, and pedaling through the gently rolling countryside of Saint-Émilion in the sunshine was pretty special!
Have you ever visited Bordeaux, or another wine region? How did you explore?
Linking up for #WanderfulWednesday with Marcella, Lauren, Van and Isabel – check out their travel link-up and their fantastic blogs using the links!
