Bordeaux Wine tasting in Southwestern France and surrounding areas is plentiful. And you will have your choice of low cost large group bus tours, small group guided tours, or intimate (and relatively expensive) private tours. We like to try several wine tasting venues when visiting an area, but our favorite is one or two personalized tours of high-end estates. These are two of our Bordeaux favorites we’d like to recount: Château Kirwan and Château Pontet-Canet.

Château Kirwan sits on a beautiful tract of land on the Cantenac Plateau in the Margaux area. It is one of the handful of estates that Thomas Jefferson visited on his trip through Bordeaux in the late 1700s. (His portrait hangs on the wall of the tasting room to this day.) Kirwan is one of the Grands Crus Classés estates and our personal tour of this high end winery did not disappoint. (The Wine Brokers Union of Bordeaux developed this 1855 Classification called the Grands Crus Classés du Médoc or Classified Great Growths for Médoc wines. The “classes” indicated by the designations (premiere, secondaire, etc.) didn’t denote quality at the time; in fact they referred to price. Thus the “first growth” wines were the most expensive with the second, third, etc. classifications being less and less expensive. The pricing follows this same basic idea today.)

Madame Nathalie Schÿler (one of the owners) leisurely walked us through the Kirwan vineyard, detailing, among other things, the arduous process the estate takes to maintain the grands crus standards. For example the height and branching pattern of each vine is regulated. Irrigation is not allowed! The harvest days are also strictly regulated, as is the crushing, vatting and bottling processes. Our day ended in the modern tasting room where we tasted and purchased some of Kirwan’s wine. I keep a bottle of this fantastic wine in wine cooler to this day. Price per bottle: approx. $75 and up, depending on vintage.

Château Pontet-Canet, located in the Pauillac region of the Medoc

A second memorable visit took us to Château Pontet-Canet; it has one of the largest productions of any Grands Crus Classés growth in the Médoc. Like Quintessa in Napa Valley, California, which we have also toured, the estate has instituted a plot-by-plot, biodynamic management system using sustainable farming techniques. This boils down to an “as-little-intervention-as-possible” approach to the vines. Our tour of the estate consisted of an initial ride around the 200-acre vineyard, then an extended time touring the barrel, bottling, and storage rooms.

Finally we headed upstairs to the very French tasting room where we were treated to a professional round of sampling. We can attest to the fact that the classic Pontet-Canet wine is deep ruby-red, sometimes almost black in color. It has a characteristic bouquet of black fruit (especially blackcurrant), licorice, and prune as well as fig, cedar, and sometimes cocoa. It’s sold for around $250, depending on vintage. A second tier wine, Les Hauts de Pontet, is sold for around $55 on average.

Ultimately, we enjoy wine tours immensely. They’re refreshing, informative, and deeply affecting. Naturally the wines are exquisite. But the opportunity to walk the verdant lands where some of the finest wines on the planet are grown, and watch them being bottled and released into an appreciative world, lasts long after the flavor of the wines fades.