Where in the world is Scott?!: Bordeaux, France

Late in May, Marina and I spent a truly memorable 4 days in Bordeaux touring the vineyards and chateaus. We stayed at Chateau Pitray, an amazing chateau built in the Victorian Gothic style, that is surrounded by a park of century-old oak and cedar trees and vineyards. Pitray has been owned by the same family for the last six hundred years and is filled with family heirlooms and artifacts! Just by luck we were the only guests at the chateau for all 4 nights, so it was just us and the owners! They were extremely gracious and gave us a tour, letting Marina play the old piano and me peruse the century old books in the library.

Here are a few pictures of the chateau... no I am not kidding.

The first night we expected silence but were greeted with a strange symphony of beeping noises. It sounded like people hitting the wrong key on a computer keyboard all across the meadow outside our window. Come to find out it was little frogs! Marina was annoyed when I continued to imitate them for weeks after our trip. Boop! ... Boop! ...

Here are some pictures of the surrounding fields and vineyards - beautiful!

One day we made a trip into the town of Bordeaux and did a bit of wondering. Here are a few photos:

The next day we drove around the region and stopped to visit the winerys and chateaus. It was a good time... we couldn't taste too much wine as I had to drive - but it was still amazing!

Chateau Pitray is not a chateau in name only - it actually continues to produce wine of its own label! We were lucky enough to be there for the bottling of the current years vintage, so we were given a tour of the process.

Some of the vintage is labeled and shipped right away, but a portion is kept and further aged in the bottles. It is labeled right before it is shipped so that the labels don't get dirty while the aging takes place.