The sun shines on Saint Émilion

5 Avril 2011

The sun shines on Saint Émilion

Breakfast consisted of bread, cheese and butter left over from the shopping spree at Carrefour the day before. We supplemented this with some croissants and coffee fron the boulangerie stand outside the hotel and a fresh loaf of six-grain bread for our travels. For one final time, we walked the roughly two miles back to the train station to catch the 1030 train to St. Émilion. By the time we completed our trek there we didn’t have much time to catch the train. The ticket line was quite long, so instead of joining the queue and risking missing the train, we figured we could just purchase our tickets online.

It was over an hour ride out to St Émilion which is located east of Bordeaux. The train was a local line which stopped frequently. The sun was shining on the countryside as we slowly bounced along past vineyards, farms, and green pastures. Before we knew it, we’d arrived at the tiny station of St Émilion and without ever seeing a train conductor. Our ride had been free! Karma was finally paying off!

There were no signs, maps or information at the tiny St Émilion train station so we used our common sense to find the village. Further uphill from the station we saw a bunch of stone buildings and tile roofs in the distance. Saint Émilion is famous for being one of the premiere wine subregions in Bordeaux, Bordeaux being one of the best regions for wine in France, which therefore makes St Émilion one of the most famous wine countries in the world as well. The town itself is quite small, but in the hill country around St Émilion are over 800 vineyards.

As we walked up the hill into the village of St Émilion we were surrounded by rows of grape vines, decadent houses perched on hilltops, and bright flowers in full bloom. There was a wine tasting in full swing inside one of the buildings we passed. I was so happy to be out of the cities and into the French countryside and the small villages. I always feel that the “real” Europe is experienced in the villages.

We were sweating by the time we hiked up the hill and steep cobblestone roads to arrive at the center of town. The St Émilion tourism office was located on one side of a bright and sunny square that had a few outdoor cafes and offered a beautiful view of the town and the valley below. St Émilion is a gorgeous and well-preserved medieval village that is a UNESCO world heritage site. All of the buildings are made of beige stone and are tightly packed together in winding cobblestone streets and narrow alley passageways all perched on the top of a hill overlooking the wine country below.

Inside the tourism office we inquired about getting help booking a hotel. The friendly girl informed us that they were not allowed to arrange bookings at their office but she could offer us a large brochure with a comprehensive listing of all of the nearby inns and hotels. While Mike stayed to arrange for us to rent bikes for the day, I went off to look around for a way to call some of these nearby hotels. I found free wifi access not far from the tourist office and even succeeded in calling a few of the hotels using my Skype account, however the person on the other end could not seen to hear me. I was starting to get frustrated. I turned around and saw a two star hotel behind me and figured I might as well see if they had a room at a reasonable rate. I may have forgotten the majority of the French I studied for all of those years, but I still had enough proficiency to ask the man at the front desk for a room and understand when he smiled and said that yes, he did have one room left in the hotel. We were lucky, he said, because someone had just called to cancel their reservation. He walked me upstairs, showed me the cute, clean little room with views of the city below and I immediately said we’d take it.

After settling up with the hotel manager, I headed back to find Mike and tell him the good news. Just as I stepped out of the hotel, I saw Mike rounding the corner pushing a bicycle in each hand. It seemed things were finally falling into place for us! Before taking the bikes out on a ride around wine country, it was time to fuel up with a good French lunch. We discovered a sunny cozy little square with three different restaurant options. We sat down outside right next to one of the steepest cobblestone streets in town. Below us was another restaurant shaded by a trellis covered in wisteria. My three course meal consisted of a Mediterranean salad, then boeuf bourguignon and finally crème caramel. Mike got paté on toast with a salad, the same boeuf bourguignon and then chocolate mousse. We decided to hold off on ordering any wine and wait to try the wine out at the vineyards. By looking through the book we’d been given at the tourist office, we learned that there were at least fifteen vineyards that offered free tastings. All of these vineyards were just within a few miles, easily accessible by bike.

After lunch we ran into two American girls who were studying abroad in Paris. They asked us in whiney voices if we had been able to find any vineyards to taste wine. Apparently these two had come here on a mission to get drunk for free on French wine. The girls informed us that unfortunately almost all of the wineries in St Émilion were closed for the week. Wine officials from all over France and presumably the world had descended upon St Émilion to taste all of the region’s best wine and vote. The only wine tastings that were available were open just to those in the “business.”

Further questioning back at the tourist office led us to two wineries located right within the walls of the city, in fact right next to one another and only a two minute walk from our hotel. We tried a variety of wines and toured the cellars. We ran into the whiney American girls and also met a young married couple who was just beginning a three month backpack journey around Europe. The couple were from New York City but had been living in London while the husband pursued an MBA. Now that he had graduated, they’d travel Europe before heading back to the US. This was their first stop of many including Greece, Croatia, Turkey, and Italy. I was quite envious of their upcoming adventure.

We chased down our wine with a stop to the local patisserie. We bought a dozen macaroon cookies. French macaroons are much different from the American type with coconut flakes. The French kind are an almond based fluffy and chewy cookie that can be made into a sandwich with any number of flavored fillings. Apparently the recipe for the simple macaroon cookie had been brought to St Émilion in the 1600s by a group of culinary-inclined nuns. We also tried the local canelles and some almond brittle with dark chocolate. All were delicious. I think I already need to increase the waist size of my pants.

For the next four and a half hours we biked all over the beautiful country that surrounds St Émilion. It was about 75F, the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the blue sky; it couldn’t have been a more glorious day. We biked past vineyards with rows upon rows of grape vines. We saw castles and cathedrals, mansions and abandoned homes, farms, fields and roadside restaurants. Between the steep hills and the blazing sun, I was sweating. It was a shame that all of the vineyards were closed because it would have been so easy to ride from one wine tasting to the next before you toppled off your bike back in the village.

We entered the arched in the medieval wall of St Émilion as the sun was starting to get low in the sky. After parking our bikes in the designated parking area, I decided we should end this glorious day with wine & cheese at sunset. At the hotel, we grabbed all of our snacks and a half bottle of Bordeaux wine and headed back to a stone bench sitting along the village wall. From our vantage point, we could admire the green valley with it’s geometric lines of grapevines below as well as the many brown and red tiled roofs of the old homes in the village.

The town was much quieter at night than it had been during daylight hours. Most of the tourists had left St Émilion, probably to return to Bordeaux for the night. The streets were dark and quiet. There were a few cafes in one of the larger squares in the village. The cafes each had just a few tables with patrons so we picked the one with the best menu options. I had some shredded zuchinni with cheese, sundried tomatoes and smoked duck breast, followed by stuffed salmon with risotto and dessert was something called a floating island which was a meringue type dessert sitting in a goblet of crème anglaise. This time we were sure to order some wine and it wasn’t long until my happy stomach was ready to go to bed.