More Wine

 Friday, November 14, 2025

We have discovered over our many ocean and river cruises that there were ports of call that had little to offer but provided a place to land between point A and point B that did have interesting sights.  Blaye (pronounced Bligh as in Captain Bligh) was one of those ports. It's only site of interest was a massive citidel built by the "Sun King", Louis XIV.  This citidel gaurded the entrance to one of the largest estuaries in Europe. It served two purposes. It protected Bordeaux's burgeoning wine industry that was shipping more and more wine aboad and  it also protected this area of France from those pesky British that always seemed to want to take over France.  About the only thing of interest in the citidel was an 11th century castle that the citidel was bult around.  Even in the 18th century there was little interest in the castle and there is no interest today.  The castle is pretty much collapsing upon itself.

Thursday was a different story.  We were docked in Pauillac on the left bank of the estuary.  Pauillac is situated in the middle of the Medoc region of Bordeaux wine production.  There are 8 appellations in the Medoc each with a different name. For wine connoisseurs, the appellation name indicates specifically where the wine is made.  The wine from each appeellation will be slightly different in both taste and quality.  The Margaux appellation produces some of the finest wines in the Medoc region.  The more famous wineries, think Lafitte Rothschild, will have imposing Chateu's  on their property. We spent almost two hours driving throughout this region seeing nothing but vineyards with the occasional magnificent Chateu. We finally stopped at one of the best, the Pieure Lichine winery, for a lesson in wine making and a wine tasting.  Grape vines typically last for 80 years. Many last longer but after about 80 years the vines produce fewer grapes and the quality of the grapes begins to deteriorate. Vines between 50 and 80 years old produce the best grapes and the wine produced from these grapes is bottled as a "Chateu" wine.  In this case, the label on the bottle says "Chateu Pieure Lichime". These wine's are usually aged for 10 years before selling and will continue to age well for another 10 to 15 years. The 20 to 50 year old vines produce a less complex wine and are bottled under a different name, in this case, Confidences de Pieure Lichine. The younger grapes are sent to cosmetic companies. 

After this tour we drove to the Kerwin estate where we were served a sumptuous four course diner with a different wine pairing for each course. The meal began with Lobster Bisque. This was followed by a plate with pork pate, chicken turine and a vegatarian quiche. The main course was fillet of beef with a porcini mushroom sauce, potato gratin and asparagus and carrots. Finally, chocolate sponge cake with chocolate sauce and a pear was the dessert course. When the kitchen staff was introducted after the meal they received a standing ovation, and rightly so.

While we are talking about food, we have had several memorable meals on our Viking ship.  All the meals have been excellent, but these two stood out. One started with onion soup, followed by quiche Loraine and a Parisian flan.  The second was a goat cheese souffle, followed by duck confit and crepe suzzane.

It's Friday afternoon as we write this post. This morning Lynda decided to sleep in so Tim went solo on the excursion; a tour of Marche des Capucins guided by one of our ships chefs. This is a historical market that has long provided fresh meats, seafood, and produce to the restaurants of Bordeaux as well as cruise ships happeining by.  Our chef took us to the vendors that he frequents where we were able to sample cheeses, ham, 18 month aged prosciutto,  fresh pear, and delectable pastries. He explained that he talked with each vendor about what he was looking for and the vendor would direct him to his freshest options which were then delivered in a day or two to the ship. Tonight we are docked overnight in Bordeaux.  We  have been told there are several nice restaurants within a couple of blocks of our ship.  We are going to try to find one of them.