June 8, 2016

Another bad night for Iris as we tried using using just the duvet cover but got cold so today we plan to find a shop and buy us a blanket (and some soap, tired of the liquid stuff).

After our nice breakfast we drove the 40 minutes to Saint Emilion, famous wine producing area of France for our scheduled visit at the Chateau Cantenac for 10:30 AM (hey, it’s never too early to taste good wine) where we met A.J. (Adrienne Jennifer) originally from California who would be our guide today.  A.J. attended UC Davis where she majored in wine production earning a masters and coming to France as an intern to learn about French wine production.  She ended up marrying one of the sons of the owner of the winery, now with two daughters and working in the family business.  The Cantenac brand is strictly family run except for the contract pickers for the harvest and the contract bottler that comes once a year to bottle the whole production from two years earlier.  7,500 cases per year, it is then laid down in the bottles for another year before labels are attached and shipping begins.  80% of their production is exported to USA, Canada and other European countries.  We have been on many winery tours in Napa, Santa Inez, Chile, Italy and France but this was the best one we have ever had.  After all this work about learning about the vines and the production we had a tasting of 4 of their products and naturally bought a couple of bottles for our own enjoyment.

  After this we were just in time for our lunch appointment in the town of Saint Emilion at Logis de  Cadene.  Maybe the worst meal we’ve had in France and expensive.  Had a nice bottle of rose, the starter was good and the dessert was pretty, but the lamb was awful.  So don’t go there!  Most you win, but some you lose.

From here we went to the Tourist Office where we paid our entry for the Underground Saint Emilion Tour which took us down into the cave where Saint Emilion had lived as a hermit in the 900’s (that is a long time ago).  Saint Emilion sat on a stone chair and prayed all day here.  Today the chair is reported to have powers that if a woman sits on the chair she will be pregnant within one year.  Many reports confirm this miracle.  Iris stayed at the back of the crowd.  Then again underground to the catacombs and large church including the huge columns that hold up the church and the very heavy bell tower which is above ground.  Very cool down there so we really enjoyed it as today the temperatures at 3 PM were up to 89 degrees.   No photos allowed.

We then had a too-long walk back to our car parked in the shade of horse chestnut trees in front of the Collegiate Church and made our way back to the B&B.  After a short nap we drove to a near-by town where there was a huge E. Leclerc Hypermarket that sold everything (think Walmart superstore on steroids), bought some stuff for our supper  and some batteries for Bob’s dying Apple mouse.  Back to the B&B and enjoyed some wine and smoked salmon for supper.  Mostly a good day except for the bad lunch.  Saint Emilion was great however.