Tourism > Southwest France > Walking tours > Wine tour > Walking inside the Bordeaux vineyards

Conditions of departure

Departure

On request, from March to November

Price

8 days - 7 nights : 829 €

Capacity

min : 2

level

All level

Daily walking : 15 km

Included

Accommodation

Charming guesthouses,

Hotel***, castle

Meal

Half board (wine, café)

Visits - tasting - transferts

Road book

Booking

F Ask for a technical file

F Conditions of sale

F Booking

Walking inside the Bordeaux vineyards

6 days

Ref : Pied 01

Self-guided hiking tour across some of the most famous vineyards of the world. Mixed up of landscape beauty, oenological pleasure and cultural discoveries...

From the vineyard of St Emilion, without any doubt the most famous, to the vineyard of Sauternes, famous for its high-class wines, you will also cross the Entre-Deux-Mers area to discover charming villages which astonish by their marvelously preserved inheritance... and by many wine châteaux and wine storehouses which decorate the landscape by their sumptuous architectures.

Hiking tour with varied landscapes, alternating footpaths across vines and woods, edges of rivers and minor roads, without forgetting stop over in wine producers

You will cordially be accommodated each evening in Charming guesthouses, hotels***, and sumptuous castles or wine châteaux in the hearth of the vines.

Program (indicative)

Day 1 : Arrival in Bordeaux and transfer to St Emilion

Arrival in the train station or Bordeaux Airport. Taxi transfer to the "Moulin de Palat" to St Emilion.

Welcome in your guesthouses. The owner will accommodate you in this old mill surrounded of a park with swimming pool , located at the heart of one of the most prestigious vineyards of the world.

Delivery of the rout notes.

Dinner in a restaurant, in the medieval city, 400 meters far from your host, in a remarkable house of the XIV 2nd. You will be able to taste a generous kitchen of soil there.

Day 2: Saint Emilion vineyards – UNESCO inheritance

You will begin your week with a hiking day in the jurisdiction of St-Emilion. All around the city extends the vines: Châteaux and wine properties, like Petrus or château La Clotte or Beau Séjour, draw up themselves there, well planted in the grounds, proud of their history and the men who set them up.

Circuit through the characteristic landscape of the coomb as well as specificities of the vineyards. Exceptional site formed by a succession of coomb covered with vines.

This " landscape " was the first “no architectural” site, classified by the world inheritance of UNESCO.

Depending on you willingness, you can visit and taste the Château du Clos de la Madeleine (great classified vintage), located on your course.

Back to you guesthouse and dinner in a restaurant located at the heart of the village.

Day 3: Saint Emilion : Exceptionnal medieval village

The morning, you will take part in a wine tasting Initiation animated in English.

An oenologist will show you the technical and specific characteristics of the vineyard of St. Emilion, as well as the principles of development of the wine. He will make you discover various visual, olfactive and gustatory feelings.... around 1h30.

After a picnic in one of the many magic places of this small city, you will have a guided tour of the city and of its underground monuments. (in English). Built in amphitheatre and true museum in the open air, the town of Saint-Emilion will astonish you. Its troglodyte tradition is seizing: a single church monolith in the world, more than 70 hectares of underground galleries dug in the calcareous rock.

The monuments and vestiges of the great Roman time follow one another along the steeps lanes, defying the rules of time the most established. Around 2h.

At the end of the afternoon, taxi transfer until St Martin de Lerm, in the “Entre-Deux-Mers” vineyard.

Dinner and night in the “Bacchus” guesthouses, in the old cattle sheds of a smallholding of the XVIIe century, renovated and arranged in bedrooms within a cordial framework of old stones and wood.

At the edge of the swimming pool, you enjoy the charm, the sight, the relaxation and the pleasures of South-west.

The host table will accommodate you the evening, to discover a regional kitchen and wines of the soil.

Day 4 : The Entre-deux-Mers area

The Entre-Deux-Mers area, between the Dordogne and the Garonne rivers, is a triangle of ground, water and stones which surprises by its cultural variety.

You will cross a part of this vineyard which profits from an exceptional geographical site on the slopes dominating the valley of the Garonne.

In the morning, your circuit will pass along the Domaine de Bouillerot (Bordeaux, Red Bordeaux supérieur, Côtes of Bordeaux Blanc and St-Macaire, sweetened white wines and red wines). If you want, you will be welcomed by the producer for the visit and a tasting.

Wine field since 1874 and vine growers since 3 generations, this owner perpetuates the tradition of the area in a constant preoccupation of the quality.

At the end of the afternoon, you will arrive at your place down the Garonne Valley and will be accommodated in an entirely restored old house, with a 3000m² shadowed and flowered park, in the heart of the cute village in the edge of the Garonne.

Dinner in your guesthouse.

Day 5 : From Caudrot to St Macaire

You will walk in a landscape of greenery, along the vines and estuary of the Gironde. Castles, fishermens huts of the area offer astonishing sights. You will be able to make a halt in the small port and its locks marking the departure of famous “Canal du Midi”, linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

The footpath lead you directly to one of the door of the medieval city of St Macaire, site protected by the historic buildings since 1965.

You will take time to visit by your own this village. Dinner and night in hotel*** in full heart of the city.

Day 6 : Loop from St Macaire to Sainte Croix du Mont

Above Saint-Macaire, the hills open splendid scenic views. One guesses there the dark spots of the tobacco drying sheds. In this landscape of hills and small valleys, the vines succeed the meadows and the thickets of leafy trees. One discovers many mills and castles there, opening very broad sights on changing reliefs.

This circuit will carry out you to the “Domaine de Malagar”, residence of the writer François Mauriac, whom you will be able to visit and to the tomb of the famous painter Toulouse Lautrec.

You will be able to visit the Château Laurette (Sweet white wine producer) or the Château Loubens before reaching the village of Sainte Croix du Mont, perched on a slope, offering a spectacular view on the Garonne Valley and remarkable for its wines and caves, whose walls are covered with fossilized oyster benches and where cellars and even a vault were arranged. Do not forget the church as well.

At the end of the afternoon, return to the hotel at St Macaire and transfer in the taxi until Sauternes.

Accommodation in a wine producer castle Great Classified Vintage of Sauternes. Very beautiful chartreuse of the 17th century located at the heart of the wine property.

Visit and tasting in the property.

Dinner in a restaurant in the Sauternes village at 5 minutes from the Château.

Day 7 : The Famous Sauternes vineyards area

Located on left bank of the Garonne, in fact the high-class wines of Sauternes are offered to the discovery. Throughout your course, you will walk along well-known wine producer like Château La Tour Blanche and château Rayne Vigneau and will be able to appreciate the small local inheritance (churches, mills, laundrettes...) but also a varied natural inheritance: landscapes of vine, forest and the Ciron river, wild small river formerly used for the transport of wood.

You will walk in an exceptional vineyard by its single soil which results from a know-how, two century old, who gave quality and prestige to the wines of Sauternes and Barsac.

Once accommodated, you will finish the day by an “aperitif tasting” in the Château Gravas. Like other high-class wines of Sauternes, the fame of the Château Gravas date of the time of Richard Coeur de Lion (XII century).

Lodging and dinner in the castle which knew how to preserve the elegance of the XVIIIème century and the Néo-Renaissance charm of XIXème with its vast rooms having view on the vines or the park.

Please do not hesitate to relax inside the Jacuzzi. After one week hiking, it is a real pleasure.

Day 8: End