Madame Liberté, Wine from the earth, Views from on high

I rolled out of bed much more well rested, made some arrangements, and headed out to explore the city for a bit before work.

A thick storm system had passed over in the morning, but I had slept in and dodged that, so the sky was gray and mottled with clouds by the time I was out and about, a perfect sky, in my opinion, for exploring a city.

I snagged a lunch snack from the Carrefour Express near my hotel, and walked to the center of the city around 13:00 intending to climb the Tour Pey Berland -- a gothic bell tower that stretches high above the city, but found when I arrived that it was accessed via timed tickets, so I purchased a ticket for 16:00 and caught a tram north to the suburb of Chartrons, the heart of the Bordeaux wine industry, intending to come back in a couple of hours.

My first stop in Chartrons was a small park in the middle of the district, where I found the small replica of the Statue of Liberty that lives here, her flame held high.   

She was beautiful, her visage as proud as always, and I thought about my grandparents' view of her companion across the sea, as they crossed New York harbor in 1953, headed for Ellis Island to begin their life in the United States, one step in the eternal chain reaction that led to my birth, and specifically to it happening in the United States and not somewhere else in the world.

Then I went and drank three glasses of wine in the middle of the afternoon, and missed my timed ticket to the tower.

In my defense, I was in a museum, and the third glass was the guide's favorite.

A few steps from the Statue of Liberty is the Musée du Vin et du Negocé de Bordeaux.  In English we'd say "the Bordeaux museum of Wine and Trade" (the French word you see here is the root word for "Negotiation", in case you were wondering!)

For the price of 15 Euros I spent an excellent hour in the cellars of a trade house of a Bordeaux wine broker, and learned some really fascinating information.

First, you need to understand the shape of the region:

The Garonne river that flows across the face of Bordeaux comes down from the Pyrenees that are south of the city, and Bordeaux was built up slowly on Marshland on the western bank of that river.

The Garonne is wide, and deep, and so despite being a long way from the Ocean proper, Bordeaux is  effectively the port town of the region, and this means that Bordeaux had more connections to the Atlantic than it did to much of France for a very long time indeed.

Until Napoleon commanded the building of a stone bridge across the Garonne in 1821, it was easier to buy Bordeaux wines in London and Amsterdam than it was in Paris.

The British at one point were importing 45 million liters of wine a year from this region, and almost all of their Claret (a wine you hear about mostly in British literature and culture these days) was made in Bordeaux.   When England lost their access at La Rochelle, Bordeaux became the dominant source of Wine for England and remained that way for many years.

A second interesting thing I learned: Wine is a two stage process, and prior to the establishment of a complete Vine-to-Bottle system at the Chateaus themselves, the second stage (barreling and aging) used to be controlled by merchants.  And more than one merchant would have a contract with the same vineyard.  Since how the barrels are toasted, how long the wine is left in the barrels, and some other factors all impact the exact final taste of the wine, the merchants used to control a sort of secondary brand, and it was common for the wine snobs of that era to not just like certain regions or vineyards, but to say "oh, I prefer the wine of [such and such merchant] from that vineyard."

A third thing: Phylloxera nearly ruined wine. 

In the 1850s Victorian botany nerds brought American vines to England, as part of the British empire's two-pronged endeavour to take everything nice from all over the world to England and also just generally be the absolute worst. 

The vines brought with them a voracious aphid that was not well understood at the time, and American vines are partially resistant to it.

European grape vines are not.

After ravaging England, the Phylloxera plague spread across mainland Europe.  In the span of 20 years, European wine production dropped by something like 70%.

This map gives me a great sadness and also an idea for a new Pandemic game

All functioning vineyards in Europe are now growing a cross-bred vine that's at least partially American because the American vines are resistant to the Aphid when compared to the European ones, and there are only a handful of places left in the world that are still able to grow genetically distinct original European-style grape vines as a result.

I learned a lot more about wine production and history and highly recommend the museum, it was an excellent time even without the great wine-tasting-for-amateurs provided at the end.

I realized as I was finishing up my time in the museum that I would absolutely miss my timed entry to the tower if I stayed for the tasting, but I knew there was also a ticket opportunity half an hour after I had purchased mine, and so decided to gamble on the kindness of the tower staff and stick around, and simply eat the 9 Euro cost of the tower ticket if they decided to be strict.

The wine tasting was excellent -- we got to try a Claret (which is barely exported anymore, only something like 0.05% of all Claret made is exported from the region, the locals drink it for themselves).  It was so bright -- I would rarely use the word "Fresh" in a complimentary sense about wine, but that's how this Claret tasted, and it seemed like it would be perfectly suited to a hot summer afternoon alongside a good gazpacho topped with buttery croutons.

Then we had a conventional red Bordeaux, the kind I'm familiar with.  This one was warm and very dry indeed, with a smoky taste.  Not a bottle I'd buy myself I don't think, but very good as a tasting example, and as part of the tasting they shared with us a local raisin that is made from the grapes of the region where the wine is grown, then coated in dark chocolate -- and tasting the wine again afterwards had such a profound impact on the flavor.  It was really fascinating.  (also, those Raisins were wild.  I would swear they were preserved in apricot or peach juice before drying, they had such a strong peach flavor.)

And lastly there was a sweet white dessert wine, which was added as an option for an extra 3 euro, and was delicious, but very sweet.  The grapes with the peach flavor that I just mentioned made up only 30% of the bottle, with Savignon Blanc being the other 70%, and it was still a very sweet wine indeed.  It needed a strong cheese or an anchovy or foie gras, something rich and salty to offset the sweetness.

So, three glasses of wine later, I careened down the street back to the tram, and jumped off at exactly 16:30 at the tower.

Thankfully the man running the tower was a delightful character who tutted and said very sarcastically "oh no... you are much too late!" as I apologized, before cheerfully directing me to the stairs so I could ascend and finally see the city laid out before me.

Something I have noticed now that I've been living in Pittsburgh for some time -- I have become very fond of how well I understand the "shape" of the city -- the rivers both define the city and also create such strong elevation changes that from around every corner you get some excellent vista view that helps you re-orient yourself and understand how Pittsburgh is laid out and where you are.

Bordeaux, as a patch of reclaimed marshland that is all basically at a single elevation, is . . . exactly not that, and after a couple of days of wandering the streets and feeling like I was somewhere in a labyrinth the whole time with only occasional glimpses of distant church towers to orient myself, I was yearning for a sense of place in the layout of the old city.

The tower provided exactly that, by being so tall that you got to see across basically the entire city in one fell swoop.

It's very tall.

And the views from the top are spectacular.

One of the things I had noticed on the river is the way the bridges north of town had to be built in a way that didn't cripple the city's ability to let tall ships and cruise ships into the harbor of the town, as Bordeaux is still a consistent stop for European cruises.  

That's hopefully easy to understand here, as you can see the lift bridge and tall suspension bridge north of town in the background, and one of the cruise ships that has been permitted through in the foreground.  (This was a moment I really wished I had brought my Serious Camera and lens with me)

My tourism for the day accomplished, I headed over to the local Spaces office to sync up with my team for the day, and then, having realized they'd benefit from a little more help in the evening, I grabbed the makings of a simple dinner from the local grocery and then caught a tram back to my hotel room and spent the evening helping diagnose an interesting software problem.

I had a good companion though, who was 5.40 Euro and worth every centime.