We used John and Gourmet Touring to recently take care of pretty much everything on our recent trip to Bordeaux and it all worked out wonderfully. As we were planning all of our other details on the other parts of our trip we wanted to fire and forget, though now we'll likely be back for a more customized trip in the future.
We went with the 3 day 2 night to-go package, and had them help book our train tickets as well, also we went with a driver (less due to drinking and more to having no sense of the area and wanting to not have to think about much). Overall I'm not sure we'd do anything different. Upon arrival our driver was waiting at the train station and great conversation from our ride from the train station to Bordeaux. She started off on a good note, affirming she liked out California Cabernet, she wasn't as knowledgeable on others but said we do good Cabernet. The ride to downtown we got a good general overview of the city, tips on things to go see and do, and a great tip for a cheap but great wine bar, which was indeed that having glasses from 2 euros up.
After that we had most of our afternoon and evening free to ourselves to check out the town. The next morning started promptly at 9am with John picking us up at our place. The day was to be spent on the right bank. We started with a tasting at a negotiant with a small tour, followed by a more in depth tasting and overview of Bordeaux. It turned out to be great in terms of education and conversation giving us a great foundation to build upon our knowledge of Bordeaux for the rest of the trip. The tasting included a total of 4 wines, we had 2 reds one from left bank on from right, then 2 whites, one dry one sweet. This proved to be the largest tasting of the trip, as we discovered the tasting experience in Bordeaux is very different than the US. Essentially they're all accompanied with a tour, and at a Chateau you're generally going to taste 1 wine as that's all they make, some may hit two.
From there we made our way to lunch, which we'd upgraded to lunch with wine at a Chateau. The meal at the Chateau proved to be absolutely excellent, a 3 course meal that proved to be filling but not too over the top. With a bit of time on our drive over to the Chateau, and a good leisurely lunch we had plenty of time to learn quite a bit more, both about John and his background, but especially around the wine - including such things as small detours to check out the only 2 wineries that have very rocky soil that are in St. Emilion and not in Pomeral where it's more common. From lunch we had a tour in St. Emilion of the monolithic church, before continuing on to our Chateau for a tour and tasting for the day. This tasting was a bit different than the earlier one as we got to tour much more of the Chateau, talked about the growing process there, and generally spent a good bit of time on the wine making process. We ended our afternoon getting dropped back off with a couple of hours until our dinner reservations.
Dinner was a great pre arranged meal... A wonderful 3 course meal which while we passed on the Michellin star upgrade we were not disappointed at all. The food quality was amazing with great presentation and taste, and then the level of service matched it.
Starting on the second day we only had one chateau for the day, which we were spending on the left bank. The tasting experience again included a great detailed tour of the grounds. The biggest surprise of it was that our tasting location got bumped from the usual spot to a section of the barrel room as James Suckling had called 5 minutes before to drop into taste, which at least to us probably made the wines taste a bit better. After a great tasting an informative session we had a good bit of time to squeeze in more sights and lunch before our train departed. Again this was especially informative as John made sure to get us sights of many of the more famous Chateaus, some more unique ones, and other picturesque ones. Lunch to no surprise of ours was again great, in some ways a bit simpler than previous days but still great quality at a great spot.
All in all we wouldn't have done it any other way, except for maybe going for 4-5 days instead of 3. Next time we may end up on a more customized itinerary, but being our first in Bordeaux this worked out wonderfully to get a great overview, translate our knowledge of California wine to how it maps to Bordeaux, and know where we can continue to dig in experiencing more of it (including some recommendations on wines, with now plans to follow up and order some from the negotiant we originally tasted with). I can completely see where the self driving option is absolutely feasible if you're tight on the cash, but the guided experience to capture minutes of extra knowledge for us felt completely worth it. read more
