After 30 years of marriage, Betsy and I had our first, solid 2 week, vacation ! We could not have asked for better timing ... Betsy was retiring AND we were invited to attend the 2nd annual gathering of the Commanderies du Vin de Bordeaux ... AND ... to our great surprise, we were also invited to added the Fete de la Fleur where a bit of wine history was made ( more on that later ).

The joy of being able to attend such a gathering and share the experiences with your very best friend is something at one cannot adequately describe.

The attendees were from around the world ... Russia, England, France, USA, Japan, Africa, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Senegal, Hong Kong, Norway and Singapore.

The following is our attempt to capture just a bit of the excitement and spectacle that we were so privileged to participate in. It is our way of giving something back to our wonderful Hosts and Hostesses in Bordeaux. We hope that you enjoy viewing these as much as we enjoyed creating them. If you have any questions about these gatherings, please don't hesitate to drop us an Email

Art & Betsy

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La Maison du Vin de Bordeaux

Headquarters of the Bordeaux Wine Council
( the half moon is the symbol for the city)

Various city views ..

The last picture is of the oldest wine
store in the city

Strolling through St. Emilion ...

this 15th Century town has been declared by the United Nations to be a "World Historic Preservation Site"

Lunch was held in a beautiful, ancient monastery. Complete with 10 Wines

At each table, our hosts insured that someone from each of the wineries was seated so that we could discuss the wines. We were delighted in having:

Ms. Francoise de Wilde
of Chateau Ripeau
( last row of pictures in the floral print dress)

As you can tell from the very last picture .. Art had not yet settled into "just tasting" the wines .. but rather fully enjoying them !!

Lunch was hosted by the Confreries of:

La Jurade de Saint Emilion
Les Hospitaliers de Pomerol
Les Gentilhommes du Duche de Fronsac
Les Vignerons de Montagne-Saint-Emilion
Les Baillis de Laland de Pomerol
Les Echevins de Lussac-Puisseguin-Saint-Emilion

After Lunch ..

We were taken on a tour
( and yet another tasting )
of Ch. Clos Fourtet

There we got to see the wonderful system of caves that they, and many of the wineries in St. Emilion use.

Of interesting note .. there are miles of these caves under St. Emilion and they are now presenting a bit of a danger. Not all that long ago a complete vineyard sunk into the ground as one of these caves collapsed !

    another note of interest ... the reason some vineyards grow roses at the ends of their rows of vines is that roses are susceptible to the very same fungus that attacks wine vines but they show the effects early enough to allow for treatment of the vines.

From there, all marched out of City Hall, into the streets of Bordeaux ( caused quite a traffic jam !! ) We tried to capture each of the Confreries from each of the Appellations .. however ... much to our dismay .. one roll of film was lost .. our sincere apologies to those Confreries whose picture we could not show here. Please .. if you have any pictures of your group that you would like posted here .. you can email them to us at art@stratsplace.com

We then arrived at the entrance to the Palais Rohan where we were greeted by the former Prime Minister of France, Alain Juppe

From there we moved on to Dinner ... yes this is STILL only the first day !!!

Dinner was held amongst the great paintings in the

Musee des Beaux Arts.

  

Consistent with the over-all quality of the entire time in Bordeaux .. we each received individual printed menus and invitations

   the wines the menu

   Seated with us at dinner was Sven Sonsteby, an artist from Norway. One of his creations is a set of wine oriented greeting cards that are absolutely hilarious !! Sven has agreed to allow us to make them available on our site at a later day so be sure to watch for them.

Phewwwwwwwwwww !!! Yep ... that was it for day one !! Like fatted lambs we quietly made our way back to our room and collapsed !!