by Paige Donner
What Tops Wine Tasting in Pauillac & Pomerol...? Wine tasting with Dad in Pauillac and Pomerol!
FULL SLIDESHOW of BOTH CHATEAUX HERE
(All photos by Paige Donner © 2015)
These two châteaus, Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande on Bordeaux's Left Bank and Château Lafleur on Bordeaux's Right Bank are two of the most distinguished, not to mention prettiest, gems in Bordeaux.
The new(-ish) vat and vinification rooms at Pichon Comtesse are simply stunning. Rarely have any of the sweeping renovations done at these historical, landmark properties been done in a manner that gathers up the beauty of the surroundings and displays them like a living painting, all there for your eye to take in and behold of the beauty and bounty. Oh yes, and then, of course (as if it could ever be an after thought!), there's the fabulous Pichon Comtesse wine, softer and more supple than her surrounding brethren.
Château Lafleur in Pomerol... Need I say more? It's difficult to describe the feeling of standing in the humble vineyards of this esteemed property, singular in its placement, its yield of some of Bordeaux's Right Bank's best wines and also in its devotion to simplicity. On one side is Pétrus, on the other is Château Le Gay... Of course what is fascinating here is that the daughters who inherited the vineyards, the predecessors (and relatives) to the current family-member owners, had the wisdom to keep their cabernet franc vines in the ground when everyone around them were pulling theirs up and re-planting with merlot five and six decades ago. What this has resulted in is a vineyard that yields grapes that go into the blends of both Les Pensées and Château Lafleur wines from this property. Of course, if you ever get to taste either of those, you can count yourself among some of the luckiest people on Earth.
One thing is for sure, even if my dear old dad never makes it back to Bordeaux, he can still always say that now he has drunk the finest wines in France.
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