Walking tour through Bordeaux vineyards from Saint-émilion to Sauternes

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 Cheval Blanc, Angelus , Pavie 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 UNESCO world heritage.

Depending on you willingness, you can visit and taste the Château du Clos de la Madeleine (great classified vintage), located on your course. this is one of the first area for red wines production in Bordeaux wine region, you can ask for a guided tour in a chateau and you’ll do a tasting of red wines and you’ll learn all about winemaking, winemakers, Grands Crus, french wine regions, appellations, French wines,  grape varieties like Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot or Merlot!

Back to you guesthouse.

The morning, you will have a guided tour of the underground monuments of the city. Built in amphitheatre and true museum in the open air, the town of St-Emilion will astonish you. Its troglodyte tradition is seizing: a single romanesque 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 1h.

The afternoon, private guided visitof one of the oldest Winerie of Saint-émilion. This winery is one of the jewels of St. Emilion: The Couvent des Jacobins followed by a wine tasting of 3-4 great wines of Saint-émilion and/or Pomerol… Around 2 hours

At the end of the afternoon, taxi transfer until Camiran, in the “Entre-Deux-Mers” vineyard.

Dinner and night in guesthouse, 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.

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. Here , ths is the first area for white wines production in Bordeaux wines

At the end of the afternoon, you will arrive in the heart of the cute village in the edge of the Garonne. We will drive you back to your guesthouse

Dinner in your guesthouse.

You will walk in a landscape of greenery, along the vines and estuary of the Gironde. Castles, fishermen 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.

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 reach 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.

Night in hotel in Sauternes

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

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.