bilboburgler

I’m trying to put together a long weekend to celebrate a wedding anniversary for 6 adults. Despite visiting lots of wine areas my knowledge of Bordeaux is limited to a long bike ride so any ideas?

Thursday fly into La Rochelle or Bergerac
Thursday night
Hotel with a good basic menu say 3 star or 4
Champagne reception Thursday night

Friday
Wine tasting in the Sweet region working our way up to Southern Bordeaux
Two in the morning, stop in a town for a find our own lunch then another in the afternoon
A simple evening meal out of the hotel

Saturday
St Emilion and the Medoc again two tastings in the morning and one in the afternoon, Light lunch say in St Emilion
Supper is a degustasion meal at a much better restaurant

Sunday good breakfast and return to airport. It would be nice to find a driver who can do all the pick ups etc

Any advise of where, who, what etc. Wedding was in September

traveller1959

Sound like a very nice weekend!! You make me jealous!

I understand you want to stay in one hotel and not keep moving.

Then you must decide where in the rather large Bordeaux region.

There are a couple of Relais&Chateaux hotels in the area but expect them to be posh and pricey.

We stayed at a 3-star-hotel with a good restaurant just north of Bordeaux/at the southern fringe of Medoc in a charming old town:

http://www.lescriquets.com/

We chose it because it has an indoor pool and is centrally located to explore every bit of the Bordelais.

Otherwise, I would not recommend a location in Medoc.

We also considered "chateau de la tour" in Cadillac, also a 3-star hotel.

http://www.hotel-restaurant-chateaudelatour.com

St. Emilion might be a nice location to stay, but I have no recommendations there.

To hire a car and driver, you may ask the hotel. The hotel receptionist will give you recommendations for wine tastings, too. Otherwise rent a 7-seater-minivan (but one has to refrain from drinking).

"Good breakfast" in France means: excellent white bread, wonderful croissants, fresh butter, homemade jam and honeym, maybe a boiled egg + coffee and orange juice.

For restaurants, I always rely on the Red Michelin. www.viamichelin.fr

bilboburgler

Some great hotels here thanks, you say it makes you jealous so just to rub it in.. every other year our wine group (12 off) does a weeks tour like this (Alsace, Chablis, Loire, Mosel) for a whole week. It sure makes you clean your teeth well if you are going to sink a Pinot Gris at 10 in the morning.

Still any more ideas?

traveller1959

Oh Bilboburgler, I would be weeping bitterly over my wounds if I were not just preparing a trip next weekend to a nice hotel at the Mosel where we will have dinner in a 3-Michelin-star restaurant...

http://www.victors.de/englisch/hotel...rt=Perl-Nennig

For Bordeaux:

The Medoc is the area where some of the greatest wines grow. For a wine-growing region, Medoc is quite unusual: no picturesque village, Pauillac and Margaux are the only, rather miserable towns.

However, the wineries occupy magnificent palaces. You can spend easily half a day just driving around and seeing three dozens of these chateaux from the outside (be sure to take a picture from each one). The rest of the day you spend visiting two or three chateaux and taste their wines.

Some of the wineries have organised the tastings Disney-style (usually upon reservation, with entrance fee, museum etc.). Others are still down-to-earth, with a family member leading you into the cave.

One of the latter tastings is offered by Château Tour du Haut-Moulin, one of the best cru bourgeois. (It is located near Cussac, between Margaux and St. Julien.) We still have a couple of bottles we bought there (6 Euros for the 1992 and 8 Euros for the 1996!!!).

St. Emilion is more like a classic wine-growing region - with lots of small and medium-sized family-owned wineries, picturesque villages etc.

bilboburgler

If you like sweet wines you might like to visit Peter Terges in Trier, a fantastic range covering loads of vintages from almost the best land in the area