Bordeaux

From the persuasion of our South African friends the night before, we decided to go to the city of Bordeaux for the day for the VinExpo.  Before we left, we learned that the VinExpo was only for professionals in the industry, but lucky for us, being "consultants" did the trick.  Thank goodness Quinn had a business card with him to show as proof.

At the VinExpo, wineries and spirits distributors were represented from all over the world.  In total, over 3,600 producers were represented.  We paid 40 euros each to enter, registered at the door, and were rewarded with what I thought of as an open bar for any winery of the world we could imagine.  At first, we felt a little uneasy since we weren't exactly part of the wine/spirits industry.  At many of the booths, people had their laptops out and it was clear that many people were meeting about business.  Once we walked around a bit, we realized that there were too many booths to visit so we focused on just a few themes:  Portugal wines and ports, Champagne, California wines, French wines, and a few towards the end that I can't quite remember.  It was the last day of the VinExpo so the exhibitors were giving everything away.  At many booths, we were told to "help ourselves" to the many, many bottles of open wine.  At other booths, they explained to us the different kinds of wine produced by the winery and the details behind each.  In some cases, we walked away with bottles of wine to take home with us and in other cases, we were offered fruit, meat, snack, or amuse bouches.

After several tastings, we ran into our South African friends at the VinExpo.  We gathered at one of the bars and enjoyed some more wine and food.

I fell asleep in the car afterwards, and when I woke up, we were in the centre ville of Bordeaux.  Quinn and I stopped for a late lunch at one of the outside eateries.

When we arrived back to BeauSejour, Maureen and Jon were outside with Helio, Stuart, and Colin.  We joined them for a few glasses of some very delicious wine, and Maureen made all of us an impromptu dinner of magret de canard with a mustard cream sauce, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers.  Maureen's home cooking was phenomenally delicious!

We sat oustide in the beautiful Bordeaux weather while we had good conversation and great company.  We were very grateful for Maureen and Jon's warm hospitality and for making friends with them and their other guests as well.