Christmas Eve Miracle

Christmas Eve and the Miracle of Bordeaux


Bordeaux, France

24-12-2010

The holiday season is for most people their favorite time of the year. I have to agree, that as the year ends and the reflection upon the last 360 some days have compiled there is a lot to contemplate. Families travel far and wide, and brave sometimes horrible conditions (thanks SNCF train from Lyon to Bordeaux), and all in all most people are generally in a good mood unless they are doing their holiday shopping. Even overseas it appears that people succumb to the same pitfalls of rushing around and getting upset when things take longer than normal, like shopping lines and parking spots. It’s all funny to me, but I think I am one of few who view it this way. I am going to take the next few paragraphs to simply recount a wonderful afternoon Christmas Eve with no plans and just soaking in the spirit of Bordeaux, and the miracle that came about from it.

So after a morning of making it to Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte in the south Margaux and I were free the rest of our time together before her departure for Prague via Paris. So after some great grilled cheese sandwiches, decadent French style of course, for lunch we headed back into the town center. We had no reservations for dinner, but knew that we wanted to visit a wine bar tasting room highly recommended, separate blog reports to follow. So we decided to park the little Smart Car and walk around for a bit near the Grand Theater. We could go to the tourism office and get a map of Saint Emilion, visit the Christmas market, and stop into a shop and get some delicious macarons. And so we began and had success at the tourism office, map and directions in hand we were set for Christmas day success. And then my wine intuition, you could say my big nose even, kicked in. There was a wine shop a few doors down from the tourism office and I wanted to go in. This is where my Christmas Miracle would begin…..

The shop, name forgotten sorry, was busy enough with all the normal fair of a Christmas Eve afternoon, most people off work probably and finishing their shopping and enjoying the day all in all. The shop had a warm feeling, bright colors and good prices, and the organization by region made it extremely easy for even the Bordeaux amateur to navigate the field with success. I wasn’t in any position to do any buying, but I do always like to shop and label admire. I have seen pretty much every producer, although not tried them all, and it honestly helps me remember my studies by looking at labels. Chateau Calon Segur is the one with the heart on the label and is the only 3rd growth from Saint Estephe, things like that. Also it helped me explain to Margaux a bit easier with visuals, like to show her Sauternes like Chateau D’Yquem and Guiraud and Climens. We hadn’t had any of the Sauternes wines yet and so it was difficult to explain them because she had not tried one before, and so I was going to be sure to buy a sample that evening and have her experience a good one.

Well the meter on our parking was running low and we had macarons to buy, and so we headed for the door when a voice from my left, although it could have been from Heaven, stopped me with my hand inches from the door. It was a man in the corner wearing a black suit and a smile that was contagious. He asked where we were going as he grabbed a bottle from his table. I quickly noticed he was doing a wine tasting and he, in French of course, murmured something that I of course could not understand except for two words- Chateau D’Yquem. If we had been playing poker my face would have been a sure tell, and then he said the real Chateau D’Yquem. To catch everyone up to speed Chateau D’Yquem is the most sought after Sauternes wine in all of Bordeaux, the highest classified and always the best produced. Furthermore it is considered by the majority of the professional wine community as the best dessert wine in the world, and I up to that point in my life had never tried it. I looked at Margaux and told her the macarons could wait. The vintage was 1995, the temperature was perfect, the pairing was Foie Gras, and the opportunity unforgettable. For sale for 290 Euros a bottle, but the tasting was free. This is a wine that was so pure, so focused and so just well damn good I have no notes for it. I know I will taste Yquem again in my life, but this first time was all about the emotion for me. It truly was a miracle to have had this occur, he could have easily let us walk out the door, we could have passed by the shop entirely, so many factors could have changed the course of the day to have diverted my path, but fate prevailed.

I know by now the holiday season has passed and we are on to a new year. But still I wish to have everyone remember to relish the little things, the opportunities that pop up and the road less travelled. Live more and worry less. Take time to enjoy life, one good glass of wine at a time.

I am signing off here with a quick update for my blog page. I am looking forward to beginning to install some new ideas in February. First off we are going to start talking about value wines and I am looking forward to refocusing the articles to be more beneficial for you the reader. Every Tuesday I will pick one wine that will always be under $15 and feature it as my ‘Tuesday Night Wine,’ a great bottle at a great price. Also I am going to reintroduce everyone to my education installments on Fridays. I want to help you learn how to taste and analyze wine so that you can better judge not only if it is a quality wine, but to help you better understand new unfamiliar wines. These will be good ‘experiments’ to do with friends on the weekends. I am trying to think of other ideas to help benefit you as well, maybe a wines of the week article or something…and so advice posted in the comments of this article would be great. Also please answer the poll(s) that I put up as this helps me better focus my aim to better target my readers. All together though 2011 is going to be a great year and I hope you are all as excited about the improvements coming to my blog as I am anticipating producing them.

Salute!