Bordeaux Day 1
Bordeaux is our last cruise port. We traveled down the Garrone River and docked right at the city center. Our ship is one of the largest ocean cruise ship that can travel down this river into the center of Bordeaux and it must be done at high tides. As such, our arrival was not until late morning. We ordered breakfast in our cabin so we could just sit and watch the lovely scenery and some of the interesting structures like the new Museum for Wine.
Just prior to entering the port we passed under the Chaban-Delmas Bridge. The entire deck lifts up and the ship travels under the bridge deck. At 253 feet high, it is the tallest vertical lift bridge in Europe. It holds up traffic for quite a while while going up and down. We heard that they post in advance when it will be lifted so people can plan their travel.
In the afternoon we took a tour to the Vineyards of Sauternes and Graves. Since we visited the most popular wine areas near Bordeaux on our last visit we decided to do something different. We met our tour guide Diana at the tour bus and were thrilled that there were only about 10 guests on the tour.
We traveled about 50 minutes to the area best known for sweet dessert wines including the one most people think of, Sauternes. Our guide lives in nearby Cadillac (and yes there is a connection to the car) and spends part of her time working in vineyards so she had a tremendous amount of information about the region, the grapes, growing, harvesting and making wine. She was also an outstanding tour guide with well thought our information and perfect English (this being a tour for English speakers). Sauternnes is made from the sémillon grape and is sometime mixed with sauvignon blanc and muscadelle. Sauterne wines have a lovely full-bodied, rich taste that only comes from a late harvest, and only when the grapes become infected with Nobel Rot (Botrytus) and no other fungus prior to harvest. Because of the process and the length of time to make the wines, it takes about 1 entire vine to produce 1 glass of Sauternes. As a result the wines are very expensive.
Our first stop was at Chateau Sigalas Rabaud a small family owned winery that has been in the same family for 6 generations. The family operates part of their chateau as a bed and breakfast so we also got a tour of the chateau as well as getting to taste their wines. We got to try Sauternes and a dry white they make from their grapes. In addition to making Sauternes they also make red wines from Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.
Our second stop was at Chateau de Cerons, another family owned winery. in the Graves Region This winery produces a variety of white and red wines, including a sweet wine made from the same grapes as Sauternes. I think they can’t call it Sauternes because of the Appellation where their winery is located. We had a full tour of their winery including a portion that has been preserved from the original winery which was built in the 17th century. They want to preserver the look, feel and smell of the original winery. They are also in the process of restoring the 17th century chateau which is definitely a labor of love. We got to taste 3 wines here, a dry write, dry red and the sweet Sauternes type wine. We purchased a small bottle of the sweet wine from each of the wineries.
It was a great last day for our cruise. After returning to our cabin we packed for our early morning departure tomorrow and had dinner. We spent time going around the ship to say good-bye to some of the crew who made our trip very special. I can’t say enough good things about the crew on this ship. The service was phenomenal from food & beverage, housekeeping, entertainers, maintenance and officers including the captain.
When we first arrived we were thrilled to see Mark and Dwight who were on our last Azamara cruise. They work in the piano bar and remembered us as soon as they saw us. They were both delightful. We also saw the butler from our previous cruise, Robert who recognized us right away. Through the entire cruise he always stoped to talk for a minute and whenever he saw us in a restaurant would stop to make sure everything was ok. He also brought around the scone cart and made sure he stopped in our room first because he knew I love the scones. Our room attendant , Mark and our butler, Virgilio were also terrific. While we didn’t need Virgilio often he made sure we had what we needed, He brought us ice every day and took care of bringing us room service when we ordered it, Mark was one of the best room attendants we’ve every had. He kept our cabin spotless and went out of his way to make out stay special. It was a joy to get to know him and many of the other crew members. They were happy to share stories about their families and the home countries. They truly made the cruise extra special.
