The new place

Hi everybody-
I am not sure if everyone knows but Jeremie and I are buying our first apartment and moving next week. The two photos above and below are views of parks on either side of the apartment.





Today I spent the day painting our "new" room, which is the one right below. It has it's own balcany, facing South, so the afternoon sunlight was really nice today while I was painting.





The photo above is our second bedroom (for guests -this is where your staying mommy when you come in April).
We have another bedroom that will be Jeremie's and my office area. It's much smaller than the other two bedrooms.



The last two photos above are the living room. It has a small alcove off to one side that will be our "dining room". The last photo I have posted is where the kitchen will be. The people before closed off one of the balcanys to make a kitchenette, because they never cook....Which is silly, but while we put back in the kitchen, it means we can cook on the balcony.
The best part of this place is that we are on the 9th floor and have balcany or windows on three sides of the comlexe, meaning our bedrooms are somewhat larger.
We are both really excited about moving, yesterday we went and bought paint, so I painted the one bedroom, this week I am hoping to have a little free time to go by and paint another one at least. The workers are starting this week or next week (most likely next week).
Much love, Sarah

Entre-deux-mers

Me in front of a very large chateau when we first started on our walk.

Jeremie and Puja
Jeremie playing with his new phone (blackberry, it takes really good photos as we noticed today)
A photo with Puja, for some reason it won't turn though....sorry

Today Jeremie and I decided to get out of the city and go walking in the countryside a little. We rented a car and drove to the other side of the Garonne where it's the area of "Entre-deux-mers" (between two seas) as it's referred to geographically. This area I find really interesting because the area on the Bordeaux side of the Garonne toward the sea is very flat, when you go to the other side it is very hilly with a more diverse landscape, certainly more interesting than driving it. We walked by a few large Chateaux and many vinyards which were really beautiful.

All in all it was a chilly 3 degrees Celcius, but sunny and not very windy, so it was perfect walking weather!

Much love, Sarah

snow and more wine tasting!

Chateau La Louviere

I think it's starting to become a pattern, the weekend before this past weekend, we went wine tasting in the region of Pessac-Leognan. Jeremie and I visited the Chateau that I worked at for three weeks. The next day I went with some of my friends to visit Chateau Brown, Chateau Lalouviere, Chateau Haut-Bailly and Chateau Lafont-Menaut. Out of the ones we visited I would have to say that the last one we visited was the most memorable, also the only one that was not packed with 60 people all at once. Interestingly enough, it is owned by the same family that owns Chateau Carbonnieux. I really loved visiting Carbonnieux, it's a family run and owned Chateau, the Lafont-Menaut is operated by the son of the owner of Carbonnieux. It is a small Chateau which was opened about 15 years ago, but they make a very good white wine and a rose that for Bordeaux is really really interesting. The only Rose that I have seen Jeremie buy actually...

After that Bordeaux got a little bit of snow, which was interesting on my bus ride to class. I decided to walk a little farther because the bus wasn't making very good time.


A car when it started snowing that morning on my way to the bus.


My path that I take from the bus to my campus.


The Insititut de la Science de la Vigne et du Vin (ISVV), my school.

Sauternes

Apart from my classes lately, I have been getting to know a lot of my classmates lately. Most Fridays we like to take over local wine bars by going with all 50 of us. The wine bars seem to be getting used to having us around which has been a plus. In the fall/ early winter, the different wine regions all do what the French call "portes ouvertes". It's a type of open house where you don't need to reserve to come visit the chateau and taste wine, and the big bonus is that it happens on a weekend, since most chateaus only let you come and taste during the week.
For the portes ouvertes for Sauternes, a region known for its "vin doux" (sweet wine) that goes wonderfully with froie gras, I went with two girls I met from my program, one from Limoges and the other girl who is from Moldovia. We started out the day at the Maison de Sauternes, which is the center for all the chateaus, they organize a lot of the events in the area, we tasted some different styles of Sauternes, got oriented with which places to visit and started off.


Me in front of the actual Chateau on the Chateau Filhot property.

We then went to Chateau Filhot, where we impressed with the way they store their bottles of Sauternes. With age, this white wine turns more and more golden, so they like to refer to their cave as their "gold mine" which is very cute. It's quite a different process from what I have seen up until now. (Below is a photo of the "box" of their gold mine at Chateau Filhot)




Chateau Guiraud

After Chateau Filhot we stopped by Chateau Guiraud, we were impressed because their stainless steel cuves are not above ground, but set into the ground. Supposedly to make it easier to pump without using a pumping machine that introduces to much mixing of the juice as it ferments and can possibly stop the fermentation.

Our next stop was the Domaine du Rousset-Petraguey. This domaine is one that is biodynamic and organic. We were interested to see the difference as well as taste the difference! One main difference is that their wine stays in barrels for up to 5 years before being bottled and then sold. It's a very small domaine as well, they have 6 hectars where as Guiraud had 40 hectars (or more....). I thought it was the most unique of all the wines we tasted that day, very very golden, but a good acidity to balance the sugar content. Also the only place that had a 100% Semillion.


La Tour Blanche

Our last visit of the day was to Chateau La Tour Blanche. La Tour was family owned up until 100 years ago when the last family member died and she donated the Chateau and the property to the state on the condition that they make it a school for agriculture and wine. It is celebrating it's 100th year. It's a wonderful place because of this mix of trying to teach and yet produce a great product. Their vinification process is really well done and it shows by their wine (a little bit in the price as well). Though I definitely wouldn't buy their second wine even if it's more affordable.
All in all it was a great day, I learned a lot about tasting Sauternes.

London weekend

Us all together outside of the Tower of London.

Two weekends ago, Jeremie and I flew to London for the weekend to meet up with my parents and David. David is enjoying his study abroad session at University of Sussex and had the chance to welcome our parents on campus. They traveled around before meeting up with Jeremie and me for the weekend.
We got in to London late Friday night, and Saturday morning we started off with a great British Breakfast. After we made our way to the Tower of London (cant miss a chance to say hello to the royal jewels). After we took a very crowded double decker bus to the National Gallery.


The boys at lunch on the square.

We stopped for a late lunch on Trafalgar square, which was delicious. We wandered around the gallery admiring the immense collection. Jeremie particularly enjoyed seeing Seurat's Bathers at Asnieres. We all enjoyed Picasso's Sunflowers and the Vermeer of the "young girl standing at the Virginal (we thought of you Oma)
After the museum we went to Covent Garden to walk around and admire the shops. We took a break to stop at a wine bar and have a drink. We then decided to start heading back to the hotel area to look for a place to eat.


At the wine bar. "Cheers"

The next day we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, my personal favorite in terms of museums. An ancient school of art, which is now a museum, they have replicas of many art pieces made by the students. Every which way you turn is full of interesting things to see. It doesn't hurt that there is another fairly large jewelery collection. We rushed through because we were going to have lunch with Dina and Howard. I was really glad to get to see them since they were so kind to host me in London for my first visit three years ago.

After lunch we went to visit Harrods, do some shopping, most window licking in the store though. (; A very large touristy shopping center. The photo of David and me browsing.


Window shopping with David

Jeremie decided that he wanted to go back to the V and A and look around more, he liked it so much. Afterwards we had a lovely dinner and then had to say good bye to David when he went back to school.
The following day my parents flew back to California while Jeremie and I flew back to Bordeaux.

Sorry that I haven't had much time to keep everyone updated. I am really busy with my graduate program, they keep us busy and it's far from home. Jeremie and I are looking forward to our California holiday (we arrive the 20th of December for ten days in the Cali sun). :)
Much love, Sarah

weekend in paris

After my internship was over last weekend, we went to Paris for a party themed "Chic et Hot". It was hosted by the brother of a really good friend of Jeremie's. We had a blast, there was lots of champagne, lots of laughing and we had a blast.



This week I had time to relax, sleep and take care of things that I had put off. We had over some friends for dinner this week, which was fun. Jeremie had a bad cold (he's still on antibiotics, but getting better). The weather here has been really odd, it's cold at night where we put on the heat at night, but during the day, it's up to 30 degrees Celsius, so the change in temperature hasn't been easy for Jeremie.
This week, I also had time to re-visit an apartment that Jeremie had visited for me, we are looking at buying a place. It needs work done, so we visited with an engineer, and made an offer, but we are waiting to see if they accept. If so, we will move into a place that doesn't require the rent in heating bills! Oh boy!
Next week, my actual classes start, which I am really excited about. I have class from 8:30 until noon and then 13:00 until 18:00 every day. It should be really interesting and a lot of information.
Much love, Sarah

Chateau Ferran

Since I am now enrolled in a two years masters program in vinification (process of making wine), I am required to spend three weeks observing what goes on at a Chateau. I am the new intern at Chateau Ferran, the one that is in Martillac (GRAVES region).
Today was my first day of taking grape samples, measuring the sugar content of the wine, cleaning the barrels to put the wine in, moving the barrels, stacking them, and of course tasting the wine that has just started to ferment (it's only a week into the process, so it still tastes like grape fruit juice, the really good kind tho). It's tiring work, but rewarding.
I didn't take pictures at work, seemed kind of odd to me, but I did take a lot of notes on what we did!

David left for "pays basque" today, the region that is south of Bordeaux, approaching the boarder of Spain. He will be back the 19th. Until then I am working, trying to figure out if I can give an English lesson here or there, judging from how tired I am after today, I think that I won't be doing many in the next three weeks. :)
Love, Sarah