Our location is perfect, at the heart of one of Europe's great historic river fronts, lined with splendid examples of eighteenth century architecture dating back to the time when this city was at the height of its powers. It grew rich on the triangular Atlantic trade in industrial produce (textiles and iron from Europe), slaves (from Africa) and raw materials (cotton, sugar, cocoa, coffee) from the Americas. In the eighteenth century it was, after London, Europe's second largest port. Trade linked Bordeaux with England; the famous wines of this region have always sold well there where they are still known as "claret." Montesquieu, like the other writers of the French Enlightenment, was an anglophile. What he admired about England was the separation of powers that historians now realize was not nearly as separate as Montesquieu supposed. Ideas spread around the triangular trade route as readily as goods and the American Revolution was greatly influenced by French philosophy.
Not all exchange between the Old and New Worlds has been beneficial: in the 1870s disaster hit the vineyards of Europe when they were hit by a phylloxera epidemic from America. The remedy was to graft French vines onto resistant New World stock, so today's Bordeaux wines are, in a sense, also New World wines. On this expedition we have been fortunate to travel in the company of Dawn Lamendola, a professional sommelier, who talked us through the region's wines in a tasting session before lunch (pictured here). In the evening we dined at the elegant Chateau Beychevelle, which produces one of the great wines of the Haut-Medoc.
Here, as the evening light faded over the Gironde River, the conversation of friends was enhanced by our newly acquired oenological vocabulary. It tasted good too!
