Karl S Mann: Europe 2013 - Bordeaux Left Bank

We took a day to visit the world famous left bank of Bordeaux - home to such famous wineries as Mouton, Lafite Rothchild, Latour and many others. All the wineries in the original ranking of 1855 are located on the left bank. Here, the world's best Cabernet Sauvignon is grown - most left bank Bordeaux wines are contain a majority of Cabernet Sauvignon. We drove through the City of Bordeaux then up through the suburb of Blanquefort which was much longer than I thought: I expected a beautiful country road but had to be patient until we were almost in Margaux.

We had an appointment at Leoville-Poyferre (2nd growth 1855 designation) up in St.Julien. Leoville-Poyferre was part of the larger Leoville Estate until the the French Revolution and was later divided into Leoville-Casas, Leoville-Barton and Leoville-Poyferre). There is a great history of the Estate on their website.

The Estate is now owned by the Cuvelier Family who were also our hosts when we visited their property Cuvelier Los Andes in Uco Valley south of Mendoza, Argentina - I felt this trip helped us to close the circle. The Cuvelier Family were wine merchants before the bought they bought the property in 1920...they also own the estate of Chateau Moulin Riche (1920) (their second label) as well as Chateau Le Crock (1903) up in St.Estephe. Our host was the charming Mrs Anne Cuvelier who showed us their property - which is interestingly all still built together but owned by the 3 separate estates of Leoville.

The winery recently bought a cutting edge sorting machine that has three built-in cameras that allows them to determine what size, and color of grape will be sorted, additionally they just invested in brand new, conic stainless steel fermentation tanks - the top of the line of, course. Their barrel room was simply gorgeous - and when one counts how many barrels there are (at the cost of about $1000 each) it is understandable why real good wines are simply more expensive than others.Anne explained that investment in the winery is essential to keep producing top quality wines.

After touring the estate and the cellars Anne invited us to their tasting room. There we had the opportunity to taste several vintages of Chateau Le Crock and La Croix then tasted their Chateau Moulin Riche 2007 against their 2004 Chateau Leoville-Poyferre 2004 - well...... age definitely had contributed to the wonderful aroma and taste of the 07.

Chateau Le Crock

After the visit and the tasting we headed further north toward Pauillac and St.Estephe.

The Chateau's are very beautiful and simply too many to visit; I guess we will have to plan another trip there in the future.

We had one of our unfortunate 'tourist' experience in Bordeaux. Around 2:00 we decided to stop for lunch. As is turns out all the restaurants are closed from 2-5. We stopped at an outdoor cafe where some customers were lingering and asked if they had any recommendations. They directed us to MacDonald s! Needless to say we waited.