July 2009

Well the time has come to leave Bordeaux and our great adventure there.  I have done most of the writing on the blog and so wanted to give the rest of the family a chance to say what they loved and hated most about Bordeaux.  We have each attached a favourite photo also.

Signing out from Bordeaux - Helen

Yvette ... 

Worst bit - Dog poo!

Best bit - Going to school in France because it was really different to Australia and really cool. Also, riding on our scooters in the mirror d'eau because we can't do that in Australia and it was really fun.  This is my favourite photo because it is some of my school friends outside our school.

Justine ... 

Worst bit - Dog poo!

Best bit - Playing in the mirror d'eau and the mist.  The mirror d'eau is a mirror made out of water and then turns into a mist - it is really good fun. This is my favourite photo because it shows Yvette, Alice and me playing in the mirror d'eau.

Helen ...

Worst bit -  Dog pooh, rubbish, smoking and cigarette butts.

Best bit - Living in the Saint Michel quarter.  I think our experience of Bordeaux would have been quite different if we had lived in another area.  I loved the color, multiculturalism, vicinity to the river, our arc de triumph (Porte de Borgorgne), the local school that the kids attended, and of course the local church square, markets, bars, cafes and restaurants. Before we left Australia, people often asked me what I would be doing in France and I flippantly remarked that I would smoke and take a lover!  Well, I managed both!  I did a lot of passive smoking at various cafes, bars and restaurants - all part of living in France.  And my lover was everything I could have asked for - bohemian with a touch of bourgeois, a little grungy in typical french style, interesting, colorful, so easy to fall in love with,  and oh so handsome.  Of course my lover was Bordeaux."

This is my favourite photo.  It was taken on the day we left Bordeaux and I was feeling elated because of the fantastic experience we had over the five months, but also a little sad realising that it was almost over.  I love the light, the waterfront buildings and our beloved Eglise St Michel.

After school in Saint Michel

Life in Saint Michel quartier, Bordeaux

......the old central part where we live is a maze of cobblestone streets, many pedestrianised, with pleasant squares.  We have the magnificent St Michel eglise on our doorstop which we have come to call "our church" because it is often used by us to locate the direction in which we need to walk to get home.  It is a 12th century church with "La Fleche" (bell tower) built separately and soars above the 4 storey high buildings.  The stained glass windows were replaced in the 70's (I hear you groan) but are magnificent in their color and style.

.....around is the large Place Canteloup, a pleasant drinking spot for Craig and I, whilst the girls ride their scooters and catch up with their friends.

....markets are held  nearly every day of the week in some form or other in Place Canteloup with the Monday market being my favourite with just about everything under the sun available. I often come home empty handed but with a camera full of photos.  I also love the bric-a-brac/antique markets.  There are still some great bargains there, but unfortunately the things that I would like such as rusty cast metal balcony pieces, furniture and the like, are probably just a little difficult to send back to Australia.  Craig is much more practical and loves the Saturday food market.  It is a feast for our eyes and stomachs and we generally come home with a feast in the making.

Wine, wine, wine!

The Weekend des Grands Amateurs May 16-17, 2009

The Weekend des Grands Amateurs was a fantastic weekend of wine events. Not so sure about the elitism implicit in the name but it was a great opportunity to try some amazing wines. On the Saturday tasting of many of the best wines in the region was held in a renovated warehouse on the Quai des Chatrons, overlooking the Garonne, under the auspices of the L’Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux. More than 100 Grand Cru classe chateaux offered a taste of their 2006 vintage plus an older vintage. The major headache was choosing which ones to try!

Armed with Oz Clarkes eminently readable wine tome “Bordeaux” I did some research the night before and decided to only try the “best of the best” according to the classification system (why bother with Grand Cru St Emilion when one could try Premier Grand Cru for example) as it would be impossible to try everything. A few lesser classified wines with big reputations were added to the list (for example Chateau Chasse-Spleen, cru bourgeois on the classification but the critics and the market tell us it is a “better” wine than that.  So having pulled apart the list and read about the wines on offer I felt ready to try as many as I could before my palate gave out.

Having developed a fondness for the savoury, rich, tropical fruit flavours (and what I would describe at times as an almost oily texture) of the wooded Semillon Sauvignon Blancs of Pessac-Leognan, I started there. I ran into Lina Zhang from the local wine shop, having a quick taste on her way to work but I guess that’s OK if you work in a wine shop! She was also keen to try the whites of Pessac-Leognan, and it was great practice for me to have someone with whom to try and discuss the wines (in french).  We tasted several excellent 2006s. What struck me was the consistency of the style: rich tropical fruit (pineapple) flavours, wood characteristics, fresh acidity, good balance and length. Theses are surely amongst some of the greatest white wines in the world. The bordelaise being bordelaise hardly even seem to think dry white wine worthy of drinking and will usually order red wine with just about everything. These wines certainly don’t seem to garner the same interest as the whites of other regions (Sancerre, Bourgogne, Pouilly-fumé etc) but seem every bit as classy. I certainly will be looking out for them in the future.

We did get to taste 2 older white wines. Chateau Haut-Bergey 2002 (from Pessac-Leognan) very minerally, pineapple fruit again but with some developed toffee flavours, and Chateau Smith Haut-Lafitte 1998 (from Graves), excellent: balanced long and still fresh but again with some developing aged characteristics. What a start to the day!

It was getting crowded and I was thinking the rest of the day would be a bunfight. I left Tina who found it impossible to walk past the sauternes stand (fair enough and I’m sure that her boss Patrick would do the same) and I whizzed off to the station to pick up some good friends Caroline, Paul and Alice, who were coming for the weekend.

When we got back the crowds had dispersed. Thank God for the French 2 hour lunch break!

Paul and Caroline had a couple of whites to taste and then we got straight into some reds. Again I was amazed by the consistency of the styles-the broad round, soft tannins and fruit but the power of the St Emilions and Pomerols (who would have thought merlot could taste this good?) and the complexity, length, structure and dryness of the reds of the Medoc (predominantly cabernet). As a whole the 2006 were difficult to really appreciate, as they were too young, so we soon decided to concentrate on the older vintage on offer. The angels sang at Chateau Angélus and Chateau Beauregard. One of the highlights was Chateau Figeac 2001. Red fruit, tobacco, meat, spice, vanilla, minerals, soft long tannins, balance, length. Extraordinary! What a privilege to taste these wines! The temptation to swallow and not spit was getting difficult to ignore!!

On to the Medoc, concentrating on the older wines on offer. The 2006 wines although expressing beautiful fruit were just too young to really appreciate at times. I mean I am not complaining. 

I wrote for the Chateau Batailley (Paulliac 5^th growth) 2006: red fruit, spice, vanilla, good fruit, balance, long, velvet tannins. Super. But some of the older wines were exceptional: Chateau Gruaud Larose (St Julien, 2^nd growth) 1999: blackcurrant, tobacco, vanilla, soft tannins but big in style, yummy. Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande (Paulliac, 2^nd growth) 2003. Still young++, big and powerful (2003 famous as the “hot” year), intense blackcurrant flavours, juicy, tannic but so well balanced.

The crowds had well and truly returned after lunch. A short break and last but not least the Sauternes and Barsacs. The first wine tasted was a Chateau Suduiraut 2002. Oh my lord. 

Length, balance complex fruit, developing toffee and marmalade, sweetness with the characteristic dry finish of the appellation. That was it! No more spitting! Surely it was a travesty to spit a wine like this! This part of the tasting was  superb and apart from the absence of Chateau d’Yquem it was a who’s who of famous chateaux. Climens, Coutet, Guiraud, La Tour Blanche, Sigalas Rabaud, Rayne Vigneau. The highlight was La Tour Blanche 2006 complex, apricots, nuts, citrus, vanilla, apples, caramel, rich, balance, length. Again a great privilege to taste wines of this quality.

And just when we thought it couldn’t get any better we went home, got dressed up and caught a bus for dinner at Chateau Coutet in Barsac…..

We had a great night. Amazing food and amazing old wines:

1998 Chateau Coutet (Barsac 1er Cru) as an aperitif.

2005 Chateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion (Pessac Léognan) with Roulé croustillant de tourteaux txangurro

1976 Chateau Coutet (Barsac 1er Cru) with Homard au mousseux d’asperges

1998 Chateau Dassault (St Emilion Grand Cru) and 1996 Chateau Langoa 

Barton (St Julien 3eme Cru) with Poularde fermière des Landes aux deux cuissons. Printanière de legumes

 1990 Chateau Lynch-Barges (Pauillac, 5eme Cru) and 1988 Chateau Léoville Barton (Saint Julien 2eme Cru) avec Trois fromages du Pays Basque

 

2003 Chateau Ormes de Pez (Saint Estèphe, Cru bourgeois exceptionel) avec Dacquoise fraise-pistache et crème glacée

There was about 6 tables of 10 and on each table sat a winemaker. After each course the winemaker explained the wines – in French and then fluent English. There was a table of people from Brazil and so someone also translated the speech from French to Portuguese. We had the fortune to be sitting at the table of the charming Laurence Brun and her husband. Laurence took over form her father as the chief winemaker at Ch Dassault at St Emilion in 1995. She spoke passionately about the 1998, which she thought was “her” first vintage, a few years after taking over at the winery and instituting some changes in vineyard management and new technology in the winery.

She insisted that we visit her winery before we left Bordeaux, so since she insisted, we did!

We took that opportunity with both hands and organised a visit towards the end of our stay and Mary Harrington came with us. We drove through the vineyards of Pomerol and St Emilion on a beautiful summers evening, past chateaux, farmhouses, villages and roman ruins. And for miles there was a carpet of vines, all meticulously trimmed and trained upright. Green fields like we haven’t seen for 10 years. We were greeted by Laurence, who by chance had just hosted the buyers from Fortnum and Maison, and so just happened to have opened some great bottles, 2006, 2001, 1999, 1995, 1994. First we had a tour of the winery and like every French winery we had visited in the region we were impressed with how meticulous and high tech it was.  She spoke passionately about the terroir, canopy/vineyard management, hand picking, hand sorting and using concrete tanks in preference to stainless steel and the use of technology to control of fermentation.  There are a number of myths I think that are common in Australia regarding French wines and French wine making techniques which may be based on past practices (or perhaps just ignorance).

Then the wines!  Beautiful, opulent, complex, balanced, gorgeous wines.  We had to recover with dinner in Saint-Emilon sitting in the courtyard of a lovely bistro well frequented by the locals, under a bending fig tree, besides the wall of a 14^th century church, sipping a bottle of St Emilion and eating perfectly matched seasonal food, locally grown and light in style. The decanter was the most fantastic we have seen- a large bowl on a long stem with a lip for pouring. Looked like one massive glass of wine! 

Laurence had told us she thought that the 2001 wines were ready to drink and of good value so that’s what we drank from Ch Laroque.

We again felt so privileged to have had experiences like this. We coined a new phrase. The only good thing about leaving Bordeaux was the chance to be able to come back again.

In the instance of that restaurant and St Emilion we loved it so much we took our good friends from Australia, Libby  and Ian there for lunch the following Sunday!

 

 

H's diary May 2009

We have been in Bordeaux for three months to the day.  We have been adventurous inhabitants here with regular wanderings to nearby towns and countries.  We have attended French schools, had Easter in Italy, weekends in the Dordogne and Lot valleys, La Rochelle, Paris, the Pyrnees and day trips to St Emillion, Arcachon, Cape Ferrat and lunch in Spain - because we could!

So on a day like this, with the sun shining, the kids at the local school, husband at work and recent visitors gone, I find myself with a relatively quiet agenda.  We are off to the Pyrenees tomorrow and so car to be picked up, maps purchased, bags packed, but otherwise my day is my own.  I do have a slight guilt that I should be home doing some french studies! But after dropping the kids at school I started wandering and with shops still closed until 10am, it is still very tranquil.  

The streets are slowly coming to life with builders arriving at ancient sites being renovated, still clean and joking with their copains and preparing for the day's work.  Street sweepers are busying themselves, bread is being delivered, dogs being walked by beautifully adorned women and cafes are quiet with a few sleepy customers.  The brilliant sun is starting to creep through to the lanes below and warming the stone buildings.  The light is magnificent.  I adore the peeling painted shutters, the rusty metal balconies, the wobbly old glass panes.  I'm always looking up, up.  Whilst there is a feeling of solitude in some of the cobblestone lanes at this time of morning, it is not a feeling of loneliness.  This is where people really live.  These old buildings almost speak of their inhabitants happiness's, sadness's, pains and elation's.  The stories these buildings must hold.  My footfalls are the same as those of people hundreds of years ago but the life so different now.

I sit at a tiny cafe in the back streets of Bordeaux enjoying an espresso, the low warm sun on my back with a glimpse of the beautiful St Andre Cathedral.  St Andre is topped by a magnificent gold Madonna and child, shining against the blue sky.  At the end of the street the trams hush by, laden with an ever increasing number of people heading to work, shopping, wherever.

My mind wanders to our first weeks in Bordeaux which were cold and somewhat bleak, but immediately I felt at home here. A town big enough to provide for our needs but small enough to feel almost village like.  On our first weekend we visited a market on the banks of La Gironne which is the large tidal river that passes through Bordeaux and would have been the main reason for Bordeaux to have existed in days gone by.  The market, known by locals as the BoBo market (bohemian, bourgeois) sells local products including produce, fish, meats, breads, cheeses and most importantly for Craig, oysters freshly shucked before our eyes and served with some nice Bordelais white wine. Whilst we were getting into the local way of life and partaking these delicacies,  the kids downing some crepes, we met a French woman who summed up Bordeaux as being one of the few french towns that had maintained 'le savoir-faire' ...

The old central part where we have been fortunate enough to find an apartment for 5 months is a maze of cobblestone streets, many pedestrianised, with pleasant squares. We have the magnificent St Michel cathedral on our doorstep which we have come to call "our cathedral" because in our first days here we frequently got lost in the laneways and then we would get a glimpse of "our cathedral" and know the way home. It is a 12th century church with "La Fleche" (bell tower) built separately and soars above the surrounding 3 and 4 storey high stone houses.  The stained glass windows were replaced in the 70's (I hear you groan) but are magnificent in their color and style - a wonderful surprise! Around the church is the large Place Canteloup, a pleasant drinking spot for Craig and I whilst the girls ride their scooters and catch up with their friends.  Place Canteloup also houses a market nearly every day of the week in some form or other.  Monday is my favourite. You can get your plumbing supplies, buttons, materials, designer frocks and shoes in amongst a pile of other trash and treasure. I often come home empty handed with some extra photos in my camera and my money still in my pocket - waiting for the elusive bargain .... maybe next week.  Wednesday is often trash and treasure but occasionally a fantastic antique market appears and some great bargains are to be had. It is a real treat and I rarely come home with nothing!  Some favourite finds are a lovely coat rack, a metal pot stand and I did come home with 8 copper pots one day when I only wanted one!  Saturday is a fantastic food market - live chickens, ducks, rabbits put gently on the scale before boxing up to go home for someones dinner.  There are freshly made goats cheeses, smallgoods, breads and of course the most delicious fruit and veg you could imagine.  More types of asparagus, peaches, lettuce, tomatoes  etc, etc, than you could imagine existed.  Our eyes are always bigger than our stomachs and we always come home with a feast in the making.

It is not all wonderful though, there is a high unemployment rate, I notice shops and businesses closing at a rapid rate and there are a lot of homeless people and beggars.  The beggars do not hassle us for money but their existence awakens us from our ever-so-easy existence.  On a much more trifle note there is also a lot of crotte du chien (dog turds).  It reminds us of Paris in the past, with Paris now pristine by comparison!

Of course the language is a bit of a problem for me, having never learned French until a few months before we arrived.  However, whilst the learning curve is steep, people are generally very helpful and tend to apologise if they don't speak English!  There are relatively few tourists here during autumn through to spring, with the British tourists arriving predominantly in the summer.  Of course there are always a few diehard travellers and wine buffs who come year round.  For us we can not imagine why Bordeaux is not more touristed.  So easy to get around.  The architecture magnificent, the people helpful and friendly, the markets are many and varied.  We can't imagine what more you could ask for in an overseas experience.

A long weekend in Bordeaux

1st, 2nd and 3rd May 2009

Friday 1st May, Fete du Travail (equivalent of our Labour Day).  Walking tour with Mary Harrington, purchase of the traditional Lily of the Valley (just about the only thing for sale on this day) and generally a lazy day.

On Saturday we started the day by going to the St Michel market - a feast for our eyes and stomachs with the freshest and ripest produce.  Also, lovely cheeses, meats and breads to name just a few things. 

The rest of the day was spent in the nearby Bordelaise town of Arcachon,  just a short trip by train.  Arcachon is the heart of the Arcachon Basin which grows spectacular oysters and is also the home of a huge sand dune which we visited on an earlier trip.  This time we made a trip by boat across the basin to the little village of Cap Ferrat.  An easy day with sleeping and reading the newspaper (The Age - thanks Mary) on the beach, kids beach combing and dipping their toes into the Atlantic, and of course eating oysters and glaces.  Arcachon has some gorgeous 1930's architecture and is a real seaside holiday spot.

On Sunday we visited the BoBo Market on the quays of the Garonne River, always a good place to while away the day.  A lunch of oysters schucked before our eyes (from the Arcachon Basin) and served with some Bordeaux white which went down very well. In the evening we went to see the Bordeaux Girondons play (soccar) in the French League.  They won the match 3:0 and went on to win the championships.

For Baranduda Primary School

Bonjour to everyone at Baranduda Primary School,

Thanks for your emails.  Here are some answers to your questions, some interesting facts about life in France and some pictures.

The French flag has vertical stripes of blue, white and red.

The French Prime Minister is Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy.

There are snakes in France, but we haven't seen any.

We have two hours for lunch at school and we sit down at tables and get served a three course lunch - see the menu.  We start school at 9am, finish at 5pm and have Wednesdays off.

Most of our school friends speak only French.  Some speak a few words of English.  We have an English language class at school once a week and we are the best in the class - of course! This is some of Yvette's home work - learning verb conjugations!

At school we use funny paper and we have to do running writing - even the little kids.  It looks 

There are flexi tellers here.  About two Australian dollars buy one euro. Most things are pretty expensive. 

Some good French words to know are:

Salut! (hi or see ya)

Bonjour (good day)

S'il vous plait (please)

Merci (thank you)

Bon nuit (good night when going to bed)

Trottinette (scooter)

Glace (ice-cream)

Bon bon (lolly)

Ca va? (How are you?) but also you can also answer 'Ca va!' (I'm good or I'm okay - depending on how you say it).

Je m'appelle ...... (My name is .....)

Je voudrais ....... (I would like ....... ) eg: Je voudrais une baguette.

Au revoir (Good-bye) from Justine and Yvette

La Rochelle

25th April 2009 ..... La Rochelle, two hours north east of Bordeaux, is a lovely seaside town built out of white sandstone.  There are 14th century towers and gorgeous arcaded buildings that were used for covered markets in days gone by.  The current market is housed within the much more modern 19th century purpose built structure.  However, the market has long outgrown that building and sprawls, on Saturdays at least, into the many little streets surrounding it.  We drooled over the mountains of strawberries, green and white asparagus, the fantastic displays of fowl, with heads still intact, and crustaceans to die for. Mountains of langoustines and oysters alongside fish of unknown (to us) varieties.

We had some tremendous seafood there, sitting on the quay, whilst the kids played on a huge old anchor that provided a suprising amount of entertainment.