MENU visits Vinexpo, Bordeaux

On Sunday we headed from Oléron to Bordeaux, quite early, to be at the start of Vinexpo, which lasted five days. And wonderful, exhausting days they were, walking several miles every day to taste some superb, some OK and frankly just a few really shocking wines. We sampled wines, champagnes and cognacs from France, wines from all over Europe, North and South America, New Zealand and one from Australia (who did not have official representation), and some South African. Our conclusion: You do need to taste wines from all over the world to get wine into perspective, but we know that we produce really good wines in South Africa and this visit confirmed it.

Our car had a TomTom GPS fitted, which made finding our way easy

The scale is immense. Hall 1 is about 1.5 Km long and ± 100m wide

The entrance in Hall 2

 which is bigger than the CTICC

The South African stands were in Hall 3

We started by registering at the media centre

where we were the only SA media representatives

It was a much needed place to sit and rest our weary legs

get some refreshment (good coffee as well)

and catch up on emails

We visited the South African stands

 which, collectively, were dwarfed by the exhibits of countries like Portugal

Their Governments value and give financial help to their wine industries. Ours does not

The fourth hall is a long walk across the lake on a causeway and is where you see accessories, like glasses & corkscrews

The clever man from Gonzalez Byass pouring Tio Pepe Fino sherry from his wine thief

 Pretty flowers along the edge of Hall 1

Small buses and club cars to help weary legs,

especially in the rain

A stand selling wine books - we would have liked to have seen Platter there

Off home after a long day, with a couple of wines for our dinner

Asara winemakers Tanja-Marie Goedhart and Francois Joubert with Lynne at the Chianti stand

 Tasting Portuguese wines with Robert Joseph

 At a tasting of Sauternes wines (we don't often see noble late harvests in magnums!)

 

we ran into Villiera's Jeff Grier, who was representing his French property

 A wine and food pairing at Barton & Guestier

One of the more unusual displays

 and an unusual label for wines from all round the world. The chenin blanc was made by Kleine Zalze

We tasted rosés from Provence, some superb, some barely OK

delicious German wines

 Mexican wines

 

with a Mariachi accompaniment

some good Listrac Medoc and Languedoc

 good Chablis 

good Burgundy

and very bad Burgundy

excellent Pouilly Fumé and Sancerre from Henri Bourgeois

very good Chenins from the Loire 

and some very good South Africans, as we would expect at an international exhibition!

 We wanted to taste Shaoxing rice wine, but they didn't have an open bottle!

Before the show closed, we paid a last visit to the South Africans

 where the WOSA girls were having a bit of fun with a Mexican

Display bottles for disposal - we were warned that they contained any old rubbish

 and tasting bottles, from which one could choose wines to take home

so we did

Read here about the Champagnes and other bubblies and the Cognacs

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© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2013