Why is bordeaux wine so expensive

Guests love small but very cozy rooms with balconies, excellent breakfast and friendly atmosphere. The 18th-century building has been transformed to a chic, contemporary hotel with spa in some rooms, a cozy green courtyard, and a wonderful wine bar with a good selection of Bordeaux wines. There are a couple of underground parking garages within minutes walk from the hotel. I find Aparthotel Adagio to be quite nice.

It looks new and it has a great location, just a few steps from Place Gambetta. Rooms have small kitchenettes. The top hotel in Saint-Emilion with incredible views of the town and the wine country. There is a 2-star Michelin restaurant in the hotel, La Table de Plaisance that specializes in French cuisine. My wine tour clients love this small hotel in the center of St Emilion. This stylish, warm and welcoming hotel with a Michelin-star restaurant on site is run by the owners of iconic Chateau Angelus.

Small, cozy and clean rooms with air conditioning make Auberge de la Commanderie a good value for money choice in this pricey area. Each room has a character at this charming hotel in the center of Saint-Emilion.

Just 5 minutes away from Saint-Emilion, this hotel is a on the border of Pomerol. You will stay in a romantic castle surrounded by world-famous vineyards. Christophe-des-Bardes, a small village just a couple of miles 3. Bernard Magrez is big name in French wine industry. The wine mogul owns more than 40 wineries across the world. You will have a chance to taste many of his wines in the chateau boutique. If you are looking to stay at a winery on the Right Bank, I have listed some options in this article on All Wine Tours.

Some winery offer chambres — serviced rooms in the chateaux. This is a tiny place to stay with only five bedrooms with views of vineyards and the swimming pool. The building is the 17th-century Bordeaux chartreuse. The chateau houses a meter heated outdoor pool, a sauna, and a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Chateau Cordeillan Bages is an excellent base for Medoc wine tours. At Chateau La Tour Carnet you will stay in a real castle surrounded by a mot. The castle interior is full of Medieval history, knights, arms and historic furniture. There are only two suites. If you rent them both, you get the whole castle to yourself! The boutique also offers wines from various other Bordeaux and French estates produced by the Bernard Magrez Group.

Chateau Grattequina in Blanquefort is on the river, Garonne, within a minute drive of Bordeaux and close to the Medoc wineries. There is a beautiful park, a spa, a Michelin-star restaurant, a bistro and a wine bar. The hotel is approximately minutes away from Bordeaux city center by car.

Chateau Pape Clement is the closest chateau to the city of Bordeaux. You will be a short Uber drive away from the city. The chateau offers guest rooms in the neo-Gothic castle built in , which is a recent structure, given that the first harvest at the estate took place in Since s the chateau is owned by wine entrepreneur Bernard Magrez who brought back the fame of the chateau and brought it to success.

Wine tasting is obligatory! In , the white of Chateau Pape Clement was given Parker points and so did the red wine a year later. Hi, my name is Polina.

I am a sommelier and a wine tour guide in Bordeaux, France. I organize private Bordeaux wine tours. Check out these options if you are looking for a small-group Bordeaux wine tours. Contact me. My Blog. My wine tour clients often ask me whether they should visit the Bordeaux famous wine museum. Here is my honest opinion on whether you should be allocating time to visit La Cite du Vin with some pros and cons.

Keep in mind I am not a big fan of museums in general, but I tried to be objective. I have also filmed a little video inside the Bordeaux Wine Museum so you can make up your mind easier.

The museum closes at 6 pm during other times of the year. For the latest opening hours and days off check out the museum webpage. You can purchase tickets at the ticket office. In the high season, you will likely see a line up.

There is a separate line for those with electronic skip-the-line ticket. You can buy them here. Important: you have to enter the Wine Museum before noon! I understand kids under 5 are admitted for free. Longer if you plan to have lunch or dinner at Le 7 restaurant which is located inside the Wine Museum.

The permanent exposition of the Bordeaux Wine Museum is located on the second floor and the tasting is on the 8th floor at the Belvedere. The map of La Cite du Vin can be found here. If you would a peek of La Cite du Vin see my video below and subscribe to my blog updates for more Bordeaux travel tips and Bordeaux wine suggestions.

There are other communes which make very good wine in Bordeaux, so do not dismiss them. Often, these have a similar quality to the famous communes, but you will only pay a fraction of the price. If you want a better quality wine, look for the following on the label:. Seem a little much? But knowing even a little can help you avoid expensive mistakes and choose wines that suits your taste. We briefly touched on this subject in the point above, but, to refresh your memory, this means that the grower bottled the wine.

It all started with Chateau Mouton Rothschild in the s. The young Baron Philippe de Rothschild persuaded all the other top producers to promote this practice, with the goal of taking control of all the wine-making elements from the field to the bottle. Although it required greater investment, as the bottling lines are not cheap, producers all saw the benefits in terms of quality control.

Today, even small producers tend to bottle their wine on the estate, renting mobile bottling facilities for the purpose. It all started in , for the Paris Universal Exhibition. The merchants of Bordeaux were asked to send in their top wine and the classification was pretty much done on the back of an envelope, based on the prices commanded by the wines.

There was nothing like blind tasting and panels of judges at that time. It was all about the money, as Oz Clarke explains in his book on Bordeaux wine. The classification included 58 red wines and 21 whites. People thought that the quick and dirty classification would be forgotten the next year. But the classification stuck and it is still in place with some amendments after nearly two centuries. There are three main classifications in Bordeaux, none of which encompasses the entire region.

In fact, there are top areas, like Pomerol, which do not have a classification. Few wine regions share as much complexity as Bordeaux. Not only do we need to know classifications, producers, appellations, and vintages, but also the concept of a first wine, second wine and even third wine.

The first wine or grand vin is the top wine of the producer. The best grapes, from the best parcels of land go into that wine. Manual harvesting and sorting of the grapes, use of expensive new oak barrels, and extended ageing and care are the norm. Rich and concentrated, these wines take longer to reach drinking maturity, and command legendary prices. So, instead of selling lower-quality grapes to other producers or diluting the quality of their own premium grand vin, Bordeaux winemakers came up with the second wine or third wine concept.

It is not a new practice, as its roots go all the way back to the 18th century. Avoid mass-produced wines in favor of family-owned properties and estate chateau.

Even top critics agree that although the classified growth wineries receive much of the attention in Bordeaux, the region remains one of the best places in the world to find good value wines. There are 57 appellations across Bordeaux, making it the largest producer of appellation wines in France. When you recognize the size of this large wine region and the sheer number of producers, it makes for a very competitive marketplace. Given the continental climate and vintage variability, be sure to seek out recent high quality vintages like , , , and Looking for more answers to your burning questions?

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