Castillion de Castets et Saint Emillion

Chris and Monique overlooking St Emillion


Chateau la Grave


Our gite in Castillion de Castets is small; Castillion de Castets itself is tiny. Before you enter every city or village in France, you have a sign stating the name of the city or village. And when you leave that city or village, you have the same sign with a line through it signifying that you are leaving. Its quite handy really.

The gap between the entering sign and the leaving sign in Castillion was about 50m.

The infrastructure in Castillion de Castets consists of a 2 pump petrol station, a shop and the town hall - c'est tout. Waiheke feels like London compared to this town. Yet somehow it is enchanting. Small can be good. Think of warts. Would you rather have a small one or a big one? Its just another aspect to the enduring adventure we are experiencing.

Our last full day in Castillion was spent at our gite with the goats. It was a lazy day. We read, wrote, ate, played ping pong and slept. It was the first day where we spent the better part of the day doing nothing. It has been hard enough having nothing to do let alone doing nothing all day. Hard but good. Jason made a serious dent in his 4th book. Christine made a serious dent in her 6th book. Jamie continued to write her hilarious daily diary and Ben pissed us off. Ben is being seriously challanged here in France. He is having to make his own fun and keep himself busy. Jamie is totally embracing the whole thing, she has been absolutely, totally amazing. In fact she is a revelation. I am so proud of them both. I have no doubts that this holiday will have a hugely positive inpact on them. I am so proud. Anyway, I digress...

We did have one plan for this lazy day. Not just a plan, but a highlight of our trip. It is harvest time here in the Gironde. As previously mentioned, our host is a 2nd generation winemaker. At 5.30pm, Laure invited us to travel the 20 minutes to Jean-Paul's winery. The grapes were coming in at 6pm and it was awesome. Although the grapes we saw being harvested were merlot, the focus of our visit was sauterne. This interested Christine and I as we had not had any previous experience with this grape.

Jean-Paul gave us the royal tour finishing with him taking us through his two 2005 Sauternes to taste the comparison (both from different soils - 1 fossilised oyster shells and the other gravel), his 2008 Rose, his 2008 Bordeaux Blanc (a blend of semillion and sauvignon gris), his 2005 Cabernet and his 1990 Sauterne - rich, syrypy, sweet like mead or honey. He would have offered us more if he had more to offer. What an experience, we were so lucky.

We got back to Castillion via the canal de midi - the one that Rick Stein travelled down on his TV show. When we got home, Percy (snigger) who I had previously heard from Laure that he had never been beaten at table tennis EVER, challanged me to a game. I dicked him 2 games to love. Nice. I still got it, I'm old, but I still got it. Anyway, I dont think my manhood would have survived a beating in ping pong by a 17 year old boy called Percy.

The next day we went to Saint Emillion - a very famous wine region overlooking the Dordogne. It was a 45 minute drive north from Castillion. A wonderful day was spent tasting Grand Cru wines. We tasted a few, drank a few and bought a few. Christine's step brother and his family drove from Bordeaux to meet us there. We had a lovely day in this extremely beautiful city.

We then had a beautiful 45 minute drive through the masses of grapes back to Bordeaux where Andrew (Christine's step brother) cooked us an O for awesome Spanish stew. The main component of the dish was an artisan made wild boar chorizo he picked up in Spain. Completely delicious with a Spanish Rioja. The day ended with another 45 minute drive for me back to the peace and calm of Castillion and our warm, cosy bed.

We left this fabulous wine region the next morning. It was sad to leave our hosts Laure and Jean-Paul, they will be strong friends. Our "nuclear family" jaunt was over, back to Salies we went, after another 2 1/2 hour road trip.

Being 7 is great, being 4 was special. We continue to be having the best time ever. Off to Bayonne tomorrow to try the famous Jambon du Bayonne, Bilbao and San Sebastian on Tuesday and London on Thursday. Good times