Sunday, May 19
The weather forecast was iffy but after hemming and hawing in the morning, I finally rolled the dice and got in the car. I'd had the idea of visiting a Bordelaise province a while back and figured this could be one of my last weekends to make it happen, so today I'm off to the Médoc region. This area follows the western bank of the Garonne north from Bordeaux and features two appellations: Médoc et Haut-Médoc.
While getting ready to leave, I spotted a surfer walking barefoot towards the beach to shred some waves.
The drive was a little longer from Biarritz than from Dax (when the idea of visiting the Médoc first came into my head) but it was just over 2 hours to reach the town of Pauillac, one of the main towns in the Médoc region. I walked around town and enjoyed some of the festivities associated with the lamb festival going on: garage sales along the length of the main street, some carnival stuff, plus music and tug-of-war contests.
As I turned onto the main artery along the Médoc "peninsula", I was surprised all the new work being done along the side of the road; this area must've just finished construction or something.
In Pauillac, it was quite where I parked near the covered market but I followed the noise and discovered the main street with festivities on one side and garage sales on the other.
The Garonne estuary in all its flat, wet, muddy glory 😅
The area really committed to the wine theme, all the major signs in the province were shaped like this.
The figurine certainly adds some charm to what would otherwise be a fairly plain harbormaster building. Why does La Fayette sound so familiar?
The Garonne is looking particularly brown on this fine day 😂 Ça te parle?
Oh, so that's why it sounds familiar. The Marquis de La Fayette was a young French noble who, believing in the American cause of freedom and self-governance, defied orders of remaining neutral and boarded a ship at Pauillac that brought him to the colonies. The ship left from Bordeaux, the Marquis boarded in Pauillac, and supplies and munitions were loaded in Pasaia before the ship crossed the Atlantic to deposit a payload of freedom
This statue has a replica of the ship and explains the ship's route a bit better.
The office of tourism opened up at 3PM where I managed to grab a couple pamphlets about the region. With those, I picked out a spot to see and finished a walking tour of the town. Pauillac felt like a tourist ghost town but maybe that's because everyone was off at the festival or elsewhere: the streets were quiet and everything closed. Per the pamphlet, the town only has a population of 5,000 ish but most of the buildings were made of stone and quite old.
These chairs appear well used; I'd like to imagine a usual crowd coming here with a couple beers to just gaze out at the river and say the equivalent of "yup".
Turns out with the Festival of the Lamb going on, the town had a bunch of things going on in the event space. For example, here's a collie having a great time herding geese; the guy had to keep telling the dog to stop , the geese didn't seem nearly as excited about the prospect as the dog.
The festival included a bunch of stuff, including rugby players, Basque singers, and Landaises' stilts and resin collection. I suppose it's all connected via trade and being fairly close together.
After looking over the festivities, I decided to start making my way back through the town towards my car.
In many ways, Pauillac felt like Dax: areas and streets were built very much like in Bordeaux but they were just empty and quiet. Maybe it being the Pentecoste and a festival happening plays into this emptiness, but Pauillac felt like a tiny town (which it is)
The doc said one glass per day, now I just gotta find this glass.
This church made it on the tourism office's list of buildings to see in Pauillac; it's an impressive structure but the sun dial on the side of the building was most impressive to me.
This little castle has seen better days; the current state is very different from what was shown in the tourist brochure; it makes me wonder how dated the brochure is.
The anchors carved above the doorways signify that these were originally houses for sailors.
My next destination was the Port de By to see an old lighthouse. Along the way, I figured I'd stop by a winery to try some of les vins de Medoc or Haute-Medoc. From my drive through Sauternes previously, I figured I should be able to just pick any vignoble, park, and ask for a degustation; especially since we're on the verge of the major tourism season. But as far as I can tell, all the vineyards were closed today; likely due to the Pentecoste.
The drive out of Pauillac featured some very big and elaborate chateaus; I guess the wine business was pretty good for some of these estates over the years.
It's not clear to me what the rule is on just wandering around vineyards but I'm not sure how fun it would actually be to simply wander.
It was a few minutes to drive up the driveway to this place only to find it closed; I think some places just left their "open" signs at the road up and forgot to take them down...
This vineyard in Haut Médoc (called haut because it's literally the highest elevation of the area) can see the estuary.
Strike 3 for trying vineyards; maybe they're all taking the day off because of the Pentecoste?
While driving, I noticed some interesting things in the vineyards; for example, some fields included roses at the end of each row and another field had a bunch of herons hanging out on posts.
Honestly, it was this arch that caught my attention from the road and brought me up to this 3rd strike vineyard; this building is separate from the tasting. I guess either the business people live in this complex or people can rent rooms to spend nights on the vineyard.
Once in Port de By, I had a nice little walk through a vineyard to see the lighthouse, which features as the emblem for the vineyard it sits on. It was a bit strange to just walk around a vineyard on my own but maybe that's just a thing in this region. From the vineyard, I doubled back to the river and got to see up close some of the fishing cabins (les carrelets) used by les Girondais to catch fish in the Garonne. They seem somewhere between bayou shacks and ice fishing cabins.
As I pulled into the parking lot, there were people breaking down food stalls from an event. Too bad I missed it, but the public bathroom was open with a water fountain for slaking my thirst.
The jist of this plaque is that the chateau of the property had to skip a few of the more expensive details because the estate almost went bankrupt when the pest phylloxera found its way to the region and ravaged the vineyards.
It's still a decent mansion! And there was someone playing piano inside; their rendition of Up Town Funk made for an interesting walk along the property edge.
What caught my attention here is the difference in the quotes listed for the French and English explanations about the Lebanon Cedar. I think the two quotes are similar but share very different moods.
Behold, a former lighthouse! Given how far away this is from the actual, current estuary I wonder if it was more of a landmark than a guiding/warding light house. Or maybe the Girondais added a ton of landfill to the Garonne to build out the Médoc region...
While 1823 is pretty old, I guess it's fairly new given how old some of the other structures in SW France are.
Navigating this after the 6th stop on a day-long wine tour must be fun when the wineries are open.
From the top, it's quite a nice tower. Plenty of vineyard and a view out to the Garonne (the patch of brown to the right 😂)
Per a sign found at the crossroads, Chateau de By grows 60% cabernet sauvignon, 35% merlot, and 5% petit verdot
I feel like owning & running a vineyard could be fun for a season, but that's probably about my limit 😂; even with a snazzy chateau.
Having seen a hawk catch a rabbit and fly off, I worked my way back down and out of the vineyard. While exiting via the actual entrance, I walked by a guy doing some sort of flush on a tractor. It's impressive the shape and size of the equipment used by modern farmers, the deep blue color of the spray from the flush was also impressive 😆
From the vineyard, I made my way back to what was marked as part of the trail to admire some of the fishing cabins. They're under lock and key but I can imagine a few people renting one for a day and having a good time with a few bottles of wine, some music, and a picnic.
From there, I figured I'd push all the way up to the tip of the Médoc, it was only another 30 minutes of driving. Turns out the wine region of the Médoc is a fairly small portion of the land: the northern part and the entire western half are either beaches, wetlands, or farmland. At the tip you could see the Garonne really moving as it poured out to the sea. Despite being really wide, I could make out the other side of the river and a tall light house just off the west coast.
The northernmost lighthouse of the Médoc, though there's a very tall sand dune a bit to the north of it. Now the lighthouse serves as a museum, it was closed when I arrived so I guess I'll never know what kind of museum.
There's a ferry that can cross the mouth of the Garonne and save people from having to make a 3 hour trip down and around. As I was approaching the tip of the Médoc, there was a huge line of vehicles coming the other direction and I figured a ferry load of cars must've just gotten off and were racing their way to their destinations.
As the Garonne opens up to the sea, it loses some of the muddy brown color and was visibly moving very fast, though I suspect part of that is associated with the tides and depth.
Ultimately, it's a pretty wide river so I can see why it was useful for commerce; there's also sandbars just outside the mouth so I suppose you'd need some decent crew too.
From what I can tell, the Girondais beaches are similar to those of les Landes in sheer quantity of sand and wildness.
Can you guess what the translation of "jetee" is?
Off in the distance was apparently a very big lighthouse that was placed to mark the edge of the sandbars. I guess on a very low tide, one could get fairly close to the lighthouse but I think most people visit/see by boat or helicopter.
At this point, I got a message reminding me that my family and I normally do Zoom calls on Sunday (evenings my time, mornings theirs). A quick glance at the GPS resulted in a message asking to schedule afford me the 3 hours needed to return to the apartment. With a quick gas visit, I put the pedal to the metal and made my way back down to Basque country. Driving back, I couldn't help but compare stretches of the Médoc with the Whidbey Island of my childhood or someplace like Long Island. Its an isolated strip of land with some agriculture and a decent amount of tourist appeal plus wetlands and one major highway.
Overall, I enjoyed my Pentecost in the Médoc. There wasn't a whole lot of wine tasting in this wine region today but I still feel I got a flavor for the place and profited from a lovely Sunday drive.
Comments
Post a Comment