France Trip 2023 | Wine & Oysters

Per my previous post highlighting Bordeaux, we spent the second morning walking the streets of the old town.

Following this walking excursion, the company had organized a bus trip taking a very scenic route that turned into the wine route with vineyards left and right dotted by the occasional chateau.

We even stopped at one of them to walk up a beautiful tree-lined alley to take a closer peek and a few photos (1).

We didn't drive too much further for our late lunch and... wine at a golf course. After an hour or so of mingling, eating, and drinking - I stuck to water as it was way too hot and too early for wine - it was time for a bit of work = two hours of presentation. Not too bad, really.

It was between four and five in the afternoon when we got back into the bus to take another ride that took us roughly an hour until we made it to

Port d'Arcachon (2)

Look at all those boats, yachts, and ships. As you can tell the weather deteriorated quite a bit. It looked really menacing but it had stayed dry - so far.

Now it was time for us to board the Greenboat our means of transportation and dinner for the evening - no, unfortunately, it was not that awesome-looking catamaran in the last picture.

Which was actually for the better because sure enough very briefly after we left the port to sail leisurely across Arcachon Bay it started pouring down on us. Oh well, we were dry on the ship and got educated about our surroundings by the captain.

And I have to say the clouds really made for some great photos.

These next photos were already taken on the other side of the bay, Cap Ferrat (3), and the houses you see here, despite not seeming to be that big, they can cost millions of Euro.

We were headed a little further to the more reasonable-looking smaller houses. A lot of them are or were apparently oyster fisher houses and some of them offer fresh oysters.

And that is exactly what the company had planned.

Fresh oysters

Too bad I don't like oysters, fresh or otherwise. But pretty much everyone else was delighted. Well, I watched and took some photos.

And then it was time to board the Greenboat again (see it at the pier in the photo below) and return to Arcachon. If you look closely you will see the Dune du Pilat (4) in some of the photos.

There was food on board, hors d'oeuvres, and, of course, more wine. This is the Bordeaux wine region after all. At the end of our meeting, some of my German colleagues who started out the trip drinking beer only and no wine at all mentioned that they loved the wine and didn't miss the beer at all. Well done, French colleagues!!

The next day it was time to finally visit a chateau and have a wine tasting. Our French colleagues who organized the meeting this year selected Domaine Giscours (5) which we reached again by bus from Bordeaux after breakfast.

It was a beautiful morning as you can see from the pictures. The thunderstorm from the previous night had cleared the air completely.

We were greeted at the gates of the chateau by their marketing manager who told us about the different grapes this domaine grows and that are mainly used in Bordeaux wines: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc for the reds and for the whites Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.

Fun fact: These days Bordeaux is mainly known for its red wine. However, before 1956 Bordeaux's main export was white wine. The winter of 1956 was brutally cold and devastating to the existing vineyards. They had to be replanted and with it a lot of the domains diversified and started over with the red grapes.

We got treated to a brief tour of the chateau including its cellars with many, many of the oak barrels filled with last year's harvest. About 80 % of it is already sold to wholesale buyers who will eventually pick up the barrels to bottle them for retail. The barrels will then be reused. I found it interesting that these barrels are actually leased and after, I believe, three runs will be returned. Pretty neat.

The tour ended in one of the halls made into an information center where we got another presentation about this specific vineyard's history followed by a proper wine tasting. Once again this was way too early for me to enjoy the wines we were able to sample, 11 am, and jet-lagged - nope, not me. But from the sound of it and what my colleagues said the wines were really good. No photos because my colleagues are in them I am not going to share them here.

After the tasting we got lunch served here ⏬

Those three floor-to-ceiling doors opened up to a reception hall with antique furniture, chairs, tables, etc., and similar doors on the opposite side opened up to the terrace overlooking the backyard lawn and ponds. That's the space our group occupied for the next couple of hours again mingling, eating, and ... drinking more wine.

Sadly I can't change any of the pictures from the beautiful back with its empire staircases left and right because - colleagues are in it. Except for this last one. Who doesn't like a nice cold and refreshing rose wine in the shade when it's hot out? Finally, I had some wine as well together with the very yummy finger food that we got served.

By about 14:30 our group split up. Some got a transfer to catch an afternoon flight home, others had to catch the high-speed train TGV from Bordeaux to Paris and on to London and then there were a very few lucky ones who went back to the hotel in Bordeau to stay another night or, like me, to stay another FEW nights in France. More about that in one of my next posts.

Thank you for reading & have a great rest of your day!

Cheers,
(Ocean)Bee

Unless otherwise noted, copyright for all photos, dividers, and gifs ©Oceanbee|ImagesByCW

99% of photos taken with my Fuji X-T5, maybe some iPhone pics