Live the Italian Dream this Summer with Abercrombie & Kent Villas
Set your own pace for exploring Italy’s charms this summer. Live the Italian dream by driving a luxury classic car following whatever route takes your fancy.
Fly to Florence, spend a few days in the city living it up like a true Fiorentino then head for the hills, for Perugia, for Rome, for Amalfi……the world is your oyster, freedom is the name of the game and at every turn there is a divine A K Villa or boutique hotel just waiting for you.
Start the odyssey in the sophisticated Renaissance gem of Florence, living in luxury in Abercrombie Kent’s luxury apartment Firenze Tre, bang in the middle of the city. Bask in the architecture, museums and galleries, pay homage to the sensational ice cream of Italy in the birthplace of gelato (Grom near the Duomo is not to be missed) and marvel at the brilliant little hands-on Leonardo da Vinci museum before exploring those seductive surroundings on horseback for a blast of fresh air.
From Florence, take to the road in style to cruise the scenic Chiantigiana route, passing the exquisite Carthusian Certosa monastery en route. Meander through Italy’s famed wine region and instantly recognisable hillscapes, visiting tiny villages and delightful towns almost too perfect to be real. Stop at Greve, an ancient market town and home to Chianti’s largest wine fair held every September. Roam through classic Tuscan countryside punctuated by tall cypress trees to the picturesque mediaeval hillside town of Cortona, where one of Europe’s foremost antique fairs takes place at the end of August in a heart-stoppingly beautiful 17th century palazzo.
From there skirt around the reed-fringed Lake Trasimeno, stopping for fish al fresco, before heading to the stunning Estruscan walled hill town of Perugia. Time your visit to coincide with the international jazz in July and the classical music extravaganza that takes place in historic monuments and churches throughout the town in August or for the chocoholic, a dreamlike chocolate festival in October. Meanwhile base yourself in the fabulous Castello di Reschio Spinaltermine, a private estate set in 2700 glorious acres that couldn’t be more perfect for relaxing and unwinding in style.
Nearby, the World Heritage Site of Assisi is a must. Incredible architectural and artistic masterpieces are crowned by the Basilica San Francesco, burial place of St Francis and the superbly preserved 1st century Temple of Minerva. A host of fascinating events includes a spine-tingling mediaeval tournament, Palio della Balestra every August.
Whilst moseying down through yet more lovely scenery, thoughts turn to things gastronomic. Abercrombie Kent’s celebrated art and wine tours are based in Norcia and Tuscany, and in Norcia itself the gorgeous 16th century Palazzo Seneca offers a warm and inviting welcome in this ultimate Umbrian foodie town.
From here Rome beckons. A slow drive south culminates in the delights of the uber-luxurious Regina Baglioni, with its spectacular views of the city and equally spectacular location just a stone’s throw from Villa Borghese and Via Condotti.
For those with time to spare, scudding down to the Amalfi coast is the irresistible grand finale of this road trip of all road trips. Abercrombie Kent Villas have a sensational line-up of luxury villas in this glamorous part of the world. The stylish Residenza Vistamare is a peaceful and private retreat. It overlooks a quaint fishing harbour, has stunning views of Capri and Mount Vesuvius and is lavishly decorated with antiques. From £592 per person per week.
At the entrance of Amalfi, the superbly restored Scaletta has a spectacular cliffside location with panoramic views reaching as far as Ravello. Original stonework dates back 800 years whilst beautiful ceramic objects and a brilliant fusion of historic charm and modern luxury render this villa truly special. From £441 per person per week.
Just outside the charming town of Posillipo, Villa del Mare is an elegant whitewashed confection, idyllically situated in one of the loveliest and most sought-after areas on the Gulf of Naples. Live in staff, extensive grounds, antique furnishings, a gym and home cinema, all mod cons and breath-taking views towards Capri combine to make this one of AK Villa’s most popular villas. From £965 per person per week.
For more information please visit www.akvillas.com
About: Abercrombie Kent Villas
Livermore wine tasting on foot, by bike or on horseback
Getting there is the least fun part of a typical wine tour, as you sniff auto exhaust for miles on end, but things are different in the Livermore Valley. This compact wine region’s unique layout features clusters of wineries and encourages a new definition of wine touring: on foot, by horse, bike or train, or even by BART.
“We’re very accessible,” says Chris Chandler, executive director of the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association. “Some people even take limos from the BART station.”
That would be the Dublin-Pleasanton stop, less than 10 miles away.
Avoiding clogged roads, belching tour buses and navigation disputes is easy in this region, where the wineries are so close together, Chandler says.
First-time visitors expecting suburban sprawl instead find open space and gentle hills carpeted with vineyards.
Over the years, this topography has inspired a handful of would-be entrepreneurs, whose short-lived businesses have offered wine tours by horse-drawn carriage, Jeep or electric scooter — and even plans for a zip-line vineyard tour.
The most enduring approach is run by 4-year-old Livermore Valley Wine Cycle Tours, which takes advantage of Livermore’s mellow byways and plentiful bike paths — and takes climate into consideration.
“If it’s over 93 degrees, I reschedule. I don’t want anybody to have a heat stroke on my watch,” owner Barbara McCall says.
Her tours are laid-back rather than hard-core,
with cycling routes of less than 10 miles, but tentative cyclists and weary sippers can always hop into the accompanying van. “We affectionately call it the poop-out mobile,” she says.
Another option is a self-catered tasting hike, which covers short distances while packing in a large number of wineries. On bucolic Greenville Road in southeast Livermore, six wineries are within less than a mile, so even winemakers use foot power to visit neighbors, says John Marion, owner of Big White House Winery.
The walking is easy, and the views can be as intoxicating as the wine. “The French guests say, ‘This looks just like Provence,’” says Pat Heineman, co-owner of Bent Creek Winery. “People from Italy say, ‘This looks just like Tuscany.’”
Another good walking route is along a veritable wine avenue: Tesla Road, a country lane teeming with wineries such as Wente, Tamás Estates, Steven Kent, La Rochelle, Stony Ridge and Concannon.
But the least-strenuous way to taste Livermore Valley wines is on the Niles Canyon Railway, whose vintage rolling stock runs on tracks that were part of the first transcontinental railroad. The train chugs between Sunol and Fremont through wooded scenery inhabited by deer and wild turkeys, delivering a two-hour ride while guests taste five Livermore wines and paired nibbles.
“We don’t go zipping by there at 50 miles an hour; we go very slow,” says Steve Ferree, who runs the wine tastings. “On the old trains and old tracks, slow is much better.”
Last year’s wine-tasting trains sold out, and plans are brewing for additional wine-related events such as dinner trains, assisted by Ferree’s thoughtful wine curation: “The smaller boutique wines that people might not have heard of, I want to spread that word.”
For those in the horse set, another way to go wine tasting is on a guided equine ride during Livermore’s Spring Stampede, sponsored by the state horsemen’s association. Trotting along vineyard trails has a few restrictions, says stampede coordinator Carolyn Hendrickson: “No kids, no stallions.” Other than that, “It’s whatever your style of saddle, so long as you can stay in it.”
Whatever the mode of transportation, wine tasting in the Livermore Valley is invariably a sweet surprise for first-timers.
“We could run a whole campaign called the ‘I had no idea’ campaign,” Chandler says. “When people come out here for the first time, they always say, ‘I had no idea.’”
Barrel Wine Tours, Shuttle Express Partner to Offer Premier Seattle Wine Tours
WOODINVILLE, Wash. –
Barrel Wine Tours and Shuttle Express proudly announce their exclusive partnership to offer Woodinville wine tours, effective February 8, 2013. Barrel Wine Tours Powered by Shuttle Express now offers luxury public and private tours of Washington wineries. Barrel Wine Tours is the premier provider of wine excursions in the greater Seattle area and Shuttle Express is the region’s premier transportation company, providing full-service transportation since 1987.
Guests of Barrel Wine Tours powered by Shuttle Express enjoy a full afternoon of quality wine immersion, getting an inside look at how Washington’s highly sought after boutique wines are produced.
“Spending time in the cellar with the winemakers is the best way we know of to truly experience the passion behind these great wines and we are happy to provide our guests with that experience,” said Cindy Lawson, Founder of Barrel Wine Tours. “This partnership brings together two companies who are already the best at what they do and together, we can offer our guests an unmatched quality wine experience. Many people around the country don’t yet realize that Woodinville, just 25 minutes from Seattle, has nearly 100 wineries and tasting rooms that represent every wine region in the state. We look forward to promoting the great Washington wineries that call Woodinville home.”
Napa Valley tourism accelerates in recent months
NAPA — Just two years after receiving a significant funding boost from a tourism improvement district, tourism in the Napa Valley continues to see an upward trajectory, with a flurry of new events that attract visitors year-round while helping to further establish a regional brand, officials said Thursday.
At its mid-year sales and marketing update at the Napa Valley Marriott Hotel and Spa, Visit Napa Valley, the county’s official tourism organization, presented findings of the tourism improvement district and laid forth its marketing strategies for the coming year. Early returns are favorable, according to Clay Gregory, chief executive officer of Visit Napa Valley.
For the 12 months ending in October, hotel occupancy rates were up by 4.8 percent, according to Smith Travel Research. Average daily room rates reached $239.32, up 3.2 percent over the year, while revenue per available room was $155.89, an increase of 8 percent. Total revenue has already surpassed that of 2011, up 10 percent to $258.3 million.
“That’s a really nice number,” Mr. Gregory said. “The comparison numbers are a lot more robust and it’s really exciting.”
Since the recession ended in 2010, the region’s hotels have steadily improved — revenues in 2011 were up by nearly 16 percent over the previous year and revenues in 2010 were up 13.4 percent over the year.
Last year, Visit Napa Valley along with numerous partners launched a number of high-profile events meant to lure visitors during the off-season, starting with the high-profile food and wine festival Flavor Napa Valley, the Napa Valley Film Festival and becoming the official wine region of the American’s Cup, all of which has made the last few months extremely busy for those in the tourism business, Mr. Gregory said.
“This is clearly the biggest six months we’ve had since we got the funding just over two years ago,” he said, referring to an increased marketing capacity afforded by the TID that put its annual budget at about $4.5 million. And the next six months will also be busy, with America’s Cup coming further into focus, Restaurant Month, Arts in April and other events.
Fine dining tops wine tourism as No. 1 attraction
Tourism officials also unveiled early results from a Napa Valley Visitor Profile Study, the first comprehensive look at who visits the area and their travel habits since 2005, according to Mr. Gregory.
According to preliminary results, fine dining has become the No. 1 attraction, outpacing wine-tasting rooms and wine tours. And the average visitor in the county spends about $356 per day, with about $260 per day on lodging. But 33.7 percent of visitors said wine was the most-liked aspect of Napa Valley, while 20.6 percent said it was the food.
Nearly 94 percent of those surveyed said they would likely return to the region, with 76.3 percent saying it was “very likely.” And nearly 93 percent of visitors came from the U.S., with intrastate travelers making up the lion’s share of that, at 46.6 percent.
Mr. Gregory said the continued improvement of the tourism sector is clearly attributable to the TID, a 2 percent assessment on visitors’ rooms, which in turn has spurred a more collaborative approach to drawing visitors from the varied interests of the county.
“To get everyone working together is a very Napa Valley action,” he said.
Baja Fresh – NYTimes.com
Adrian GautThe pod-rooms at Endémico, one of the new hotels in the wine region of Valle de Guadalupe, are perched above the valley.
See the interactive slide show
We are south of the border and in from the sea, underground and staring up at the light. Narrow shafts of sunlight breach the subterranean dark via a constellation of tiny skylights that are, our host points out, actually repurposed eyeglass lenses. The arched ceiling itself is fashioned from the upturned hull of an old wooden fishing boat, burned black. The walls of the oblong space are simply a cutaway of packed, tan earth. It is kind of the best room in or under the world, or as Phil Gregory puts it, proudly: “My future mad-scientist laboratory.”
Phil Gregory — impish, 60-ish, trim beard and wavy silver hair tucked behind his ears — is a winemaker, innkeeper and aspirational scientist, though he didn’t used to be any of these things. Originally from Manchester, England, he spent most of his career in the music industry in Los Angeles. He and his wife, Eileen, who’d started a healthy-living cable channel in Europe with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, spent years vacationing up and down the Baja California peninsula. When a friend suggested they drive the bumpy two-lane road up to see the rock-strewn landscape of a small wine-producing area called Valle de Guadalupe, they’d never heard of the place. They weren’t alone.
Vines have been planted and wine made on the peninsula since the 17th century, first by Spanish missionaries, then by Russian Molokans, then by faceless corporate factories squeezing faceless corporate wine out of cheap land with little thought given to the terroir of one of the oldest vineyards of the New World. To put it bluntly, on hearing the word “Mexico,” we don’t, most of us, answer immediately: “Wine country!” But here it is, an hour an a half south of San Diego, skirting Tijuana down the misty curving beauty of Highway 1, then a quick turn inland: a wild and beautiful wine land, lush in the valleys, dry in the hills and dotted with mini-boulders that give the terrain a distinctive Napa-meets-Mars quality.
It was the sight of those rocks that did it for the Gregorys. They purchased some land as a weekend retreat, 70 unfenced acres where Eileen could ride her horse and Phil could learn to make a little wine for their private amusement. Things did not go as planned. “The difference in our plans was that mine involved lying in a hammock with a beer and Eileen’s involved this,” Phil says, swinging a hand in the air to indicate his winery as well as La Villa del Valle, their lovely six-room inn. “So we compromised and did this.”
This grew over the years to embrace olive-oil production, a line of lavender soaps and candles made by Eileen and a restaurant, Corazón de Tierra, which is probably the most interesting place to eat in the valley.
The winery is still a work in progress. Workmen are affixing more glass lenses to a wall.
Phil describes his plans for a grand entrance, for a Bandol-style red he’s going to try with some Mourvèdre he recently planted, and a list of esoteric gadgetry he requires for his wine wonk laboratory. ” ‘The NeverEnding Story’ — his favorite movie,” Eileen jokes.
Around the time the Gregorys arrived, others were beginning to see the potential in this sleepy valley. Hugo D’Acosta, a French-trained winemaker from Mexico City, came in the late ’80s, hoping to find a place to make quality Mexican wines. He worked for the big guys for a dozen years before breaking off on his own to found Casa de Piedra and become the face of an independent grower-producer winemaking movement. Hugo, as everyone calls him — pronounced OOOH-go — has been called the Mexican Mondavi.
He is ubiquitous but press shy, soft spoken but rigidly opinionated, and there is something of Steve Jobs in his grown-up hippie-turned-oenologist oligarch, a dreamer who dreamed up an industry and trusts his own instincts. Then there is the Che Guevara aura, the sad-eyed, cat-whiskered revolutionary up in the hills waging his battles against the Man for his constituents of previously disenfranchised farmers. They used to sell their grapes to the big companies for pennies a pound. Then D’Acosta came to town, set up a school and taught them how to make wine. Ten years ago there were only a handful of wineries in the valley. Now there are more than 50.
“Hugo persuaded farmers to grow better grapes,” Phil says, admiringly. “He persuaded the winemakers to make better wine and taught them how to do it. He saw the potential and if it weren’t for him, none of what’s happened here would have come to pass.”
One afternoon, my girlfriend, Evyn, and I arrange to meet D’Acosta at Paralelo, a pretty winery on the grounds of what was once a huge trash dump. Hugo’s brother, Alejandro, an architect, built the concrete structure that houses the winemaking facilities. It is not a warm-and-fuzzy building. Imprinted on its angular walls are outlines of tires and other detritus, a stark tribute to the previous life of the place.
Alejandro also designed Phil’s winery — it was his inspired idea to rescue rotting fishing boats doing time on dry dock and put them to work as the exoskeleton of a new building. His own weekend house in the valley makes use of considerably less romantic raw material: a salvaged truck container, a decommissioned meth lab.
“Don’t tell everyone,” Hugo says when I admit what a happy surprise we’ve found the area to be. “Don’t tell.” He’s mostly kidding (I think).
In any case, the buzz about the valley has been building for a few years, and people now come to taste their way across the valley and fill the restaurants at night. But D’Acosta is nonetheless concerned that progress can come too quickly. Sudden spotlight and attention can wrong-foot an industry that is, despite four centuries of vinous prehistory, really just finding its way.
“A million years ago all of this was on the ocean floor,” D’Acosta says. Over the ages the peninsula rose and fell as it broke away from the mainland, leaving the interior soil with a sandy salinity that, along with the breezy Mediterranean weather, contributes to the special quality of valley wines. Describing terroir is a tricky business. How do you define the specific identity of the wines grown here?
“Mexican,” D’Acosta answers, without hesitation. “People say, ‘Why don’t you grow one specific grape, like the Argentines or Uruguayans?’ The answer is Mexico is like that. Mexico is a mosaic of cultures. Which is the true
Mexican food? Nobody knows. . . . We need to brand Mexico as Mexico is. We are a very complicated, mixed culture. I think it would be a mistake to try to simplify.”
People will continue to make what they mean to be complimentary comparisons between this valley-on-the-cusp and the memory of Napa-as-it-once-was. But the true appeal of this place is its particular character and not how it conforms to some picture-book idea of what a sun-dappled wine paradise should look like.
Afternoons, the sun feels brutally close. Nights, comets and stars crash and sputter in plain view above the suddenly cold earth. One night we were driving home from dinner over a dirt road and nearly smushed a spider the size and hairiness of a small cocker spaniel. “The valley is a magical place,” Eileen Gregory says in her quietly animated way. “Magic” is a word that comes up often among transplants and locals.
“It’s this incredible conurbation of country people who never left, cowboys who ride horses without a saddle and live off the land and, because it’s a wine region, there are a lot of sophisticated, well-traveled people,”
Eileen says.
The key to cashing in on the attention is to build for the latter types the kinds of things they require (hotel rooms with Wi-Fi, thoughtful food) without driving away the former and turning the place into another anodyne anywhere, bleached of the culture that made it interesting in the first place.
The hotel we’re staying at is a fine and mostly successful attempt to fuse these two worlds. It’s called Endémico, and there’s a good chance you heard about it — and saw pictures of its pitched-roofed rooms perched amid the boulders at cloud level — before you even knew of Valle de Guadalupe. The hotel is owned by Grupo Habita, and it’s the kind of design-conscious, eco-messaging operation that everyone in town tells you couldn’t have existed here five years ago. Each of the 20 pod-rooms, reached by dusty walkway, is composed of glass and Cor-Ten steel and floats high above the valley — great for the views, not so great when you have to walkie-talkie back to reception and wait for a Polaris 4×4 Ranger to collect you every time you want to go to your car. But the rooms sit lightly on the land and you do feel like you are in the rocky terrain, not just looking out at it.
The main road through Valle de Guadalupe and the area of Ruta del Vino is Highway 3. Addresses are given in kilometer-marker numbers along it. From there, you depart the asphalt and leave a cloud of dust behind as you. Over lunch at her restaurant, Corazón de Tierra, Eileen tells me something she says Hugo D’Acosta likes to say: “Bad roads, good tourists. Good roads, bad tourists.”
For now the spirit of the valley seems to have survived the incursion of a smooth-paved central highway. At any rate, I can’t get misty eyed about the lost innocence of more rustic times when the chef Diego Hernández has just sent out a smart little snack of local sea urchin affixed to a crunchy square of chicharrón with a dab of puréed avocado. Next, a near-perfect dish of fleshy roasted escolar dusted with the ashes of burnt onion, seaweed and a smoky parsnip purée. “To remember the Mayan tradition of cooking with smoke and wood flavors,” the server says. We’re drinking Phil’s spicy 2010 Tempranillo, nicely chilled. He provides the house wine at Pujol, a Mexico City restaurant that recently landed at No. 36 on the influential World’s 50 Best Restaurants — testament both to the seriousness of the man’s hobby and the respect the wines of the region are finally getting at home.
Casa de Piedra (kilometer marker 93.5) is Hugo D’Acosta’s original winery, ground zero of the revolution. Here there is no modernist structure, just a sweet old stone house that’s been expanded over the years. We’re drinking with Víctor Moreno, D’Acosta’s young lieutenant and winemaker, and Drew Deckman, a laid-back American chef. Moreno uncorks some sparkling wine, which it seems impolite to spit, and then a bottle called Contraste Intercontinental, a blend of grapes from D’Acosta’s Languedoc-Roussillon winery with those from Casa de Piedra. “It’s a friendship wine,” Moreno says of the intercontinental experiment. “Imagine the French thinking about this French wine made by Mexican people!”
Next we try . . . well, next we try a dozen different things. It’s hot in the shade and what’s being poured is, like those French and Mexican juices, getting a bit mixed up. The talk turns — as wine talk should — to food. No matter how pleasing the product, tasting-room marathons tend to get a little dull after the first half dozen sips. Swirl, nose, suck, chew, spit, repeat — time for lunch. An enduring conundrum about visiting wineries: they all start to look the same after the second day.
The local answer to the riddle of how best to enjoy a day in wine country is known as the asador campestre, or country grill. Typically these are casual restaurants on the grounds of wineries. You’re in the midst of the vines, but instead of being stuck inside talking malolactic fermentation, you’re outside at a table in the sun, plucking bottles out of ice and eating well.
Deckman’s en el Mogor is Drew Deckman’s summer escape from his more formal restaurant down the coast in San José del Cabo, his very own outdoor laboratory on the grounds of Mogor-Badan winery. “I feel different here,” he says. “I’m on vacation.” Which is not to say he isn’t working. He’s running around, fanning the wood fire grill, pulling pints of the house beer he makes flavored with fennel and orange flowers from the property, bringing a visitor across a field to point out the pink peppercorn plants and the carob trees he uses to make ice cream.
Pepita the rescue dog and Guapo the slobbering stray circle the tables. The food is improvisational, brightly seasoned, not in the least Mexican but a freewheeling exploration of its flavors: an unlikely surf and turf of beef tongue carpaccio with gooseneck barnacles; plates of oysters and roasted sardines; grilled local abalone with charred summer corn.
“Everybody talks about farm to table — well, we just took the table to the farm,” Deckman says.
A large table of winemakers and their families shows up. Deckman turns the volume up on the Blue Note jazz, uncorks a few more bottles of Mogor-Badan estate-chilled Chasselas and gets back to the grill. He couldn’t look any happier.
ESSENTIALS: VALLE DE GUADALUPE, MEXICO
Hotels
Endémico Grupo • Habita’s new eco-conscious hotel has modern pod-like glass and steel huts with unparalleled views of the valley. Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 75.
La Villa del Valle • With a pool and the best new restaurant in town on the property, why would you need to leave this lovely six-room inn? Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 88; 011-52-1-646-183-9249.
Restaurants
Deckman’s en el Mogor • Georgia-raised chef Drew Deckman’s seasonal outdoor restaurant. Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 85.5; 011-52-1-646-135-5505.
Corazón de Tierra • Modern airy rooms featuring Diego Hernández’s inventive use of estate-grown produce. Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 88; 011-52-646-156-8030.
Finca Altozano • A large grill, a blackboard full of specials, and views over the vines. Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 83; 011-52-1-664-166-6839.
Silvestre • Seasonal outdoor restaurant specializing in grilled meat and seafood, with a lively wine-industry crowd. Carratera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 73; 011-52-646-175-7073.
Laja • Ingredient-driven Baja California cuisine in an elegant space that gets respect as the place that started it all. Carratera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 83; 011-52-646-155-2556.
A version of this article appeared in print on 11/18/2012, on page M2131 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Baja Fresh.
Chillout Travel Winery Tours offer a great day out for people looking for …
MELBOURNE 10 December 2012. This month many people will visit
Melbourne during the holidays for Christmas and the New Year.
The International News Magazine travel writers tracked down a great
way to spend a day visiting the famous wineries in the greater
Melbourne area. Not many years ago, Melbourne was not a well known
wine producer. Many people thought that the Barossa Valley was the
only Australian wine region. Just as Margaret River has become
famous for wine, so has Melbourne.
Elly from Chillout Travel suggests that people looking to explore
beyond the Melbourne suburbs discover the scenic
Yarra Valley that is only one hour from
Melbourne on a guided Tour.
The Yarra Valley tour gives visitors to Melbourne a chance to
visit some of the best wineries
including the famous Domaine Chandon.
“Enjoy great wine, great food
a great day out…” is the motto at Chillout Travel.
Details of the Yarra Valley Winery Tour
– Public
Start the day with a guided
tour of the wine making
facilities at the famous Domaine
Chandon and learn how
wine is made. Enjoy a
glass of sparkling or still wine
with nibbles.
Then off to Train Trak
Vineyard (“Hottest Vineyard
Restaurant”, ‘OUTthere Food and Wine
Awards’) to sample hand harvested
boutique wines and sit back and
relax with a lovely two course
lunch, glass of wine tea
or coffee overlooking stunning
vineyard views.
Experience Yering Station the oldest
vineyard in the valley and try
some great wines including excellent
Cuvee’s and awesome desert wines,
plus more! Check out their
produce store and wander around
the gardens.
Then finish your leisurely day
and sniff, swirl and slurp your
way through some great wines at
De Bortoli’s, a third
generation Italian Winery.
Max 11 people for a relaxed
fun day out. Bookings from
1 person upwards.
Established in 2003 Chillout Travel
Winery Tours is an organisation
that is passionate about food
and wine. We showcase the
best of what the wine regions
offer and provide expert hosts
on our guided wine tours to
the Yarra Valley and Mornington
Peninsula.
Chillout Travel ® is a
Licensed Tour Operator and an
‘Accredited Tourism Business Australia’.
Chillout Travel is a member of
‘Tourism Alliance Victoria’.
Chillout Travel is compliant with
the ‘Public Transport Safety
Victoria’.
Chillout Travel organises wine tours
for all group sizes and
occasions including social, corporate
and hens bucks
tours. We can tailor tours
to suit you!
To find out more visit Chillout Travel Winery Tours
T: + 61 3 9537 3301 | E:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
“Great wine, great food a great day out…”
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World Wild Life Fund, Smile Train The Big Issue.
“Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around” Henry Thoreau.
Baja Fresh
Adrian GautThe pod-rooms at Endémico, one of the new hotels in the wine region of Valle de Guadalupe, are perched above the valley.
See the interactive slide show
We are south of the border and in from the sea, underground and staring up at the light. Narrow shafts of sunlight breach the subterranean dark via a constellation of tiny skylights that are, our host points out, actually repurposed eyeglass lenses. The arched ceiling itself is fashioned from the upturned hull of an old wooden fishing boat, burned black. The walls of the oblong space are simply a cutaway of packed, tan earth. It is kind of the best room in or under the world, or as Phil Gregory puts it, proudly: “My future mad-scientist laboratory.”
Phil Gregory — impish, 60-ish, trim beard and wavy silver hair tucked behind his ears — is a winemaker, innkeeper and aspirational scientist, though he didn’t used to be any of these things. Originally from Manchester, England, he spent most of his career in the music industry in Los Angeles. He and his wife, Eileen, who’d started a healthy-living cable channel in Europe with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, spent years vacationing up and down the Baja California peninsula. When a friend suggested they drive the bumpy two-lane road up to see the rock-strewn landscape of a small wine-producing area called Valle de Guadalupe, they’d never heard of the place. They weren’t alone.
Vines have been planted and wine made on the peninsula since the 17th century, first by Spanish missionaries, then by Russian Molokans, then by faceless corporate factories squeezing faceless corporate wine out of cheap land with little thought given to the terroir of one of the oldest vineyards of the New World. To put it bluntly, on hearing the word “Mexico,” we don’t, most of us, answer immediately: “Wine country!” But here it is, an hour an a half south of San Diego, skirting Tijuana down the misty curving beauty of Highway 1, then a quick turn inland: a wild and beautiful wine land, lush in the valleys, dry in the hills and dotted with mini-boulders that give the terrain a distinctive Napa-meets-Mars quality.
It was the sight of those rocks that did it for the Gregorys. They purchased some land as a weekend retreat, 70 unfenced acres where Eileen could ride her horse and Phil could learn to make a little wine for their private amusement. Things did not go as planned. “The difference in our plans was that mine involved lying in a hammock with a beer and Eileen’s involved this,” Phil says, swinging a hand in the air to indicate his winery as well as La Villa del Valle, their lovely six-room inn. “So we compromised and did this.”
This grew over the years to embrace olive-oil production, a line of lavender soaps and candles made by Eileen and a restaurant, Corazón de Tierra, which is probably the most interesting place to eat in the valley.
The winery is still a work in progress. Workmen are affixing more glass lenses to a wall.
Phil describes his plans for a grand entrance, for a Bandol-style red he’s going to try with some Mourvèdre he recently planted, and a list of esoteric gadgetry he requires for his wine wonk laboratory. ” ‘The NeverEnding Story’ — his favorite movie,” Eileen jokes.
Around the time the Gregorys arrived, others were beginning to see the potential in this sleepy valley. Hugo D’Acosta, a French-trained winemaker from Mexico City, came in the late ’80s, hoping to find a place to make quality Mexican wines. He worked for the big guys for a dozen years before breaking off on his own to found Casa de Piedra and become the face of an independent grower-producer winemaking movement. Hugo, as everyone calls him — pronounced OOOH-go — has been called the Mexican Mondavi.
He is ubiquitous but press shy, soft spoken but rigidly opinionated, and there is something of Steve Jobs in his grown-up hippie-turned-oenologist oligarch, a dreamer who dreamed up an industry and trusts his own instincts. Then there is the Che Guevara aura, the sad-eyed, cat-whiskered revolutionary up in the hills waging his battles against the Man for his constituents of previously disenfranchised farmers. They used to sell their grapes to the big companies for pennies a pound. Then D’Acosta came to town, set up a school and taught them how to make wine. Ten years ago there were only a handful of wineries in the valley. Now there are more than 50.
“Hugo persuaded farmers to grow better grapes,” Phil says, admiringly. “He persuaded the winemakers to make better wine and taught them how to do it. He saw the potential and if it weren’t for him, none of what’s happened here would have come to pass.”
One afternoon, my girlfriend, Evyn, and I arrange to meet D’Acosta at Paralelo, a pretty winery on the grounds of what was once a huge trash dump. Hugo’s brother, Alejandro, an architect, built the concrete structure that houses the winemaking facilities. It is not a warm-and-fuzzy building. Imprinted on its angular walls are outlines of tires and other detritus, a stark tribute to the previous life of the place.
Alejandro also designed Phil’s winery — it was his inspired idea to rescue rotting fishing boats doing time on dry dock and put them to work as the exoskeleton of a new building. His own weekend house in the valley makes use of considerably less romantic raw material: a salvaged truck container, a decommissioned meth lab.
“Don’t tell everyone,” Hugo says when I admit what a happy surprise we’ve found the area to be. “Don’t tell.” He’s mostly kidding (I think).
In any case, the buzz about the valley has been building for a few years, and people now come to taste their way across the valley and fill the restaurants at night. But D’Acosta is nonetheless concerned that progress can come too quickly. Sudden spotlight and attention can wrong-foot an industry that is, despite four centuries of vinous prehistory, really just finding its way.
“A million years ago all of this was on the ocean floor,” D’Acosta says. Over the ages the peninsula rose and fell as it broke away from the mainland, leaving the interior soil with a sandy salinity that, along with the breezy Mediterranean weather, contributes to the special quality of valley wines. Describing terroir is a tricky business. How do you define the specific identity of the wines grown here?
“Mexican,” D’Acosta answers, without hesitation. “People say, ‘Why don’t you grow one specific grape, like the Argentines or Uruguayans?’ The answer is Mexico is like that. Mexico is a mosaic of cultures. Which is the true
Mexican food? Nobody knows. . . . We need to brand Mexico as Mexico is. We are a very complicated, mixed culture. I think it would be a mistake to try to simplify.”
People will continue to make what they mean to be complimentary comparisons between this valley-on-the-cusp and the memory of Napa-as-it-once-was. But the true appeal of this place is its particular character and not how it conforms to some picture-book idea of what a sun-dappled wine paradise should look like.
Afternoons, the sun feels brutally close. Nights, comets and stars crash and sputter in plain view above the suddenly cold earth. One night we were driving home from dinner over a dirt road and nearly smushed a spider the size and hairiness of a small cocker spaniel. “The valley is a magical place,” Eileen Gregory says in her quietly animated way. “Magic” is a word that comes up often among transplants and locals.
“It’s this incredible conurbation of country people who never left, cowboys who ride horses without a saddle and live off the land and, because it’s a wine region, there are a lot of sophisticated, well-traveled people,”
Eileen says.
The key to cashing in on the attention is to build for the latter types the kinds of things they require (hotel rooms with Wi-Fi, thoughtful food) without driving away the former and turning the place into another anodyne anywhere, bleached of the culture that made it interesting in the first place.
The hotel we’re staying at is a fine and mostly successful attempt to fuse these two worlds. It’s called Endémico, and there’s a good chance you heard about it — and saw pictures of its pitched-roofed rooms perched amid the boulders at cloud level — before you even knew of Valle de Guadalupe. The hotel is owned by Grupo Habita, and it’s the kind of design-conscious, eco-messaging operation that everyone in town tells you couldn’t have existed here five years ago. Each of the 20 pod-rooms, reached by dusty walkway, is composed of glass and Cor-Ten steel and floats high above the valley — great for the views, not so great when you have to walkie-talkie back to reception and wait for a Polaris 4×4 Ranger to collect you every time you want to go to your car. But the rooms sit lightly on the land and you do feel like you are in the rocky terrain, not just looking out at it.
The main road through Valle de Guadalupe and the area of Ruta del Vino is Highway 3. Addresses are given in kilometer-marker numbers along it. From there, you depart the asphalt and leave a cloud of dust behind as you. Over lunch at her restaurant, Corazón de Tierra, Eileen tells me something she says Hugo D’Acosta likes to say: “Bad roads, good tourists. Good roads, bad tourists.”
For now the spirit of the valley seems to have survived the incursion of a smooth-paved central highway. At any rate, I can’t get misty eyed about the lost innocence of more rustic times when the chef Diego Hernández has just sent out a smart little snack of local sea urchin affixed to a crunchy square of chicharrón with a dab of puréed avocado. Next, a near-perfect dish of fleshy roasted escolar dusted with the ashes of burnt onion, seaweed and a smoky parsnip purée. “To remember the Mayan tradition of cooking with smoke and wood flavors,” the server says. We’re drinking Phil’s spicy 2010 Tempranillo, nicely chilled. He provides the house wine at Pujol, a Mexico City restaurant that recently landed at No. 36 on the influential World’s 50 Best Restaurants — testament both to the seriousness of the man’s hobby and the respect the wines of the region are finally getting at home.
Casa de Piedra (kilometer marker 93.5) is Hugo D’Acosta’s original winery, ground zero of the revolution. Here there is no modernist structure, just a sweet old stone house that’s been expanded over the years. We’re drinking with Víctor Moreno, D’Acosta’s young lieutenant and winemaker, and Drew Deckman, a laid-back American chef. Moreno uncorks some sparkling wine, which it seems impolite to spit, and then a bottle called Contraste Intercontinental, a blend of grapes from D’Acosta’s Languedoc-Roussillon winery with those from Casa de Piedra. “It’s a friendship wine,” Moreno says of the intercontinental experiment. “Imagine the French thinking about this French wine made by Mexican people!”
Next we try . . . well, next we try a dozen different things. It’s hot in the shade and what’s being poured is, like those French and Mexican juices, getting a bit mixed up. The talk turns — as wine talk should — to food. No matter how pleasing the product, tasting-room marathons tend to get a little dull after the first half dozen sips. Swirl, nose, suck, chew, spit, repeat — time for lunch. An enduring conundrum about visiting wineries: they all start to look the same after the second day.
The local answer to the riddle of how best to enjoy a day in wine country is known as the asador campestre, or country grill. Typically these are casual restaurants on the grounds of wineries. You’re in the midst of the vines, but instead of being stuck inside talking malolactic fermentation, you’re outside at a table in the sun, plucking bottles out of ice and eating well.
Deckman’s en el Mogor is Drew Deckman’s summer escape from his more formal restaurant down the coast in San José del Cabo, his very own outdoor laboratory on the grounds of Mogor-Badan winery. “I feel different here,” he says. “I’m on vacation.” Which is not to say he isn’t working. He’s running around, fanning the wood fire grill, pulling pints of the house beer he makes flavored with fennel and orange flowers from the property, bringing a visitor across a field to point out the pink peppercorn plants and the carob trees he uses to make ice cream.
Pepita the rescue dog and Guapo the slobbering stray circle the tables. The food is improvisational, brightly seasoned, not in the least Mexican but a freewheeling exploration of its flavors: an unlikely surf and turf of beef tongue carpaccio with gooseneck barnacles; plates of oysters and roasted sardines; grilled local abalone with charred summer corn.
“Everybody talks about farm to table — well, we just took the table to the farm,” Deckman says.
A large table of winemakers and their families shows up. Deckman turns the volume up on the Blue Note jazz, uncorks a few more bottles of Mogor-Badan estate-chilled Chasselas and gets back to the grill. He couldn’t look any happier.
ESSENTIALS: VALLE DE GUADALUPE, MEXICO
Hotels
Endémico Grupo • Habita’s new eco-conscious hotel has modern pod-like glass and steel huts with unparalleled views of the valley. Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 75.
La Villa del Valle • With a pool and the best new restaurant in town on the property, why would you need to leave this lovely six-room inn? Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 88; 011-52-1-646-183-9249.
Restaurants
Deckman’s en el Mogor • Georgia-raised chef Drew Deckman’s seasonal outdoor restaurant. Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 85.5; 011-52-1-646-135-5505.
Corazón de Tierra • Modern airy rooms featuring Diego Hernández’s inventive use of estate-grown produce. Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 88; 011-52-646-156-8030.
Finca Altozano • A large grill, a blackboard full of specials, and views over the vines. Carretera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 83; 011-52-1-664-166-6839.
Silvestre • Seasonal outdoor restaurant specializing in grilled meat and seafood, with a lively wine-industry crowd. Carratera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 73; 011-52-646-175-7073.
Laja • Ingredient-driven Baja California cuisine in an elegant space that gets respect as the place that started it all. Carratera Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at Km 83; 011-52-646-155-2556.
Wine region protection worries other farmers
Updated
Landmark laws to protect two premium wine regions from urban sprawl have pleased many, but not all farmers in such things as dairy production.
The character preservation legislation passed by the South Australian Parliament covers 40,000 hectares of farm land in the McLaren Vale region, south of Adelaide, and almost 150,000 hectares in the Barossa Valley, to the north-east of the city.
It prohibits land in the zones from being subdivided for housing and removes the planning minister’s power to approve major developments without parliamentary scrutiny.
Rosemount Estate chief winemaker Matt Koch is pleased there will be laws to protect his region from being overrun by suburbia.
“It gives us the opportunity to not stop progression but at least have our say in progression and give a voice for the future of McLaren Vale and wine regions in general,” he said.
Dudley Brown has been one of those fighting for better protection.
“If you’re an agriculture producer anywhere within two or three hours of a city, if you’re not looking at legislation like this to protect your agricultural areas, you won’t be in business in 25 years,” he said.
Mr Brown is a grape grower and winemaker who moved to Australia almost a decade ago from Orange in California after his region disappeared under cement.
“A city of almost 100,000 got built and it was all orange groves when I got there and I was like “What a beautiful place” and literally seven years later it was sort of gone,” he said.
When Mr Brown saw housing start to crawl towards his vineyard in the McLaren Vale region, he was determined to nip it in the bud.
He suggested McLaren Vale follow the lead of another wine region, the Napa Valley in the US, which is protected from development under the Williamson Act.
“Basic land – agriculture and land prices in Napa Valley 40 years ago, McLaren Vale were probably fairly similar, maybe around $1,000 an acre. Today an acre of vineyard in Napa Valley is $300,000 an acre, where in McLaren Vale it’s $35,000 or $40,000. $35,000 or $40,000 sounds pretty good until you hear $300,000,” he said.
Efforts to stop encroachment of housing into wine areas of South Australia gained momentum when producers in the Barossa Valley joined the fight.
“We think for the two most-valuable wine regions in Australia to join together to do this is going to make quite a splash nationally and internationally,” Mr Brown said.
Not all vineyards
In the Barossa Valley, even though vineyards have expanded rapidly over the past decade they take up less than 10 per cent of the preserved area and more than three quarters is used for cropping and grazing.
Not everyone who works in these industries is as pleased with the character preservation legislation.
Peter Grocke is a mixed farmer at Gomersal in the Barossa Valley and a vocal opponent of the laws.
“The laws in the bill are for landscape aesthetic beauty preservation, nothing to do with the reality of broadacre staple food production and they are designed to key-up tourism in the wine industry,” he said.
The third-generation sheep and crop farmer says prominent figures in the premium food and wine industry have helped shape the laws, but the more grassroots agricultural sector has been shut out of high-level talks.
“The broadacre farming group has on multiple occasions sought meetings with the Minister for Planning. We’ve got so much money invested within this industry, we’ve got an equal right to sit around the table with any minister,” he said.
Planning Minister John Rau conceded most of the feedback and lobbying had been from the food and wine interests.
“I’m not aware of being approached by people individually or collectively to speak particularly about broadacre farm issues,” he said.
“They (food and wine interests) have been the most visible people, but I’ve never had the impression that they were speaking in a voice that everyone else found unacceptable.
“How do they feel that they’ve been badly done by in this process? I mean, we haven’t affected them at all except said that, “You will not be converting your broadacre farm into a housing estate.”
There has been much debate about what the character part of the preservation laws actually covers.
Jan Angas’ home Hutton Vale at Angaston certainly is not short of character. She shares the historic property with husband John.
They produce premium lamb, wool, wine and a bit of grain. The passionate foodie is also an outspoken advocate for the protection laws.
“The preserved bill is not trying to set the rules. It’s trying to set the position. We’re trying to say we want to keep the character, so then we have to work out exactly what it is in that character that we see as valuable and then put planning rules to it so we don’t destroy it,” she said.
Under the rules, councils most often will ultimately decide which developments fit in and which do not.
Ms Angas says aesthetics must play an important part in those decisions.
“If we allow three-storey mass Colorbond sheds alongside someone that’s doing a very low-key tourism operation that you can hardly see and is very smart and stylish, if you hit both of those at the same time you’re sending a mixed message,” she said.
Photo:
Minister thinks all sectors of the Barossa can benefit from the laws
‘Can’t hide’
Jeff Kernich is a fifth-generation dairy farmer in the Barossa Valley and says tourism is getting the key say.
“Unfortunately, I think a lot of the thought that’s behind this protection act is more about the tourists that are coming to the area who come for the wine tours, etcetera. And I don’t have a problem with tourists. I invite tourists to come and see my operation. I love tourists coming to see my operation, but I can’t hide what I’m doing,” he said.
While other milk producers have exited the industry, Mr Kernich has hung on by value-adding. Next to his dairy in a converted shipping container is a tiny processing plant where jersey cream and milk are bottled.
After eight years in these cosy quarters, he is keen to expand but worried that the people interpreting the character preservation rules will not take into account the realities of farming and will put visibility ahead of viability.
“To remain viable, for the whole family to continue we need to increase our cow numbers quite considerably, but of course with that sort of thing comes building sheds, building dairies, building factories and they are all things that we’re concerned that maybe down the track people will look at and say “Well that sticks out like a sore thumb on top of a hill” and we may have difficulties getting that sort of expansion through,” he said.
Mr Rau doubts such farming will run into problems.
“If a farmer wished to diversify and in order to do that they had to put some plant, for example, on their property, provided that plant complied with the council rules about setbacks and all the usual things one would expect that’s entirely in character with the region, because the plant would be an adjunct to or a part of the normal activity, the historically-established activity of the region,” the Minister said.
As a milk producer who has watched his industry all but disappear, Mr Kernich questions whether any farming activity can be considered normal.
“The character has already changed vastly to what the character was 10 to 15 years ago, so are we trying to protect what’s here now or are we trying to protect the character that was there in my forefathers’ days?” he asked.
Another fifth-generation farmer who can probably see things from more sides than most is Michael Heinrich. He grows hay, grain and grapes at Tanunda in the Barossa. While he supports a freeze on housing developments, he is not convinced protection laws are going to increase the value or profitability of his patch.
“Laws like this, it’s their job to then sort of … provide a means for an economic sustainability for farmers because, if that doesn’t happen, ultimately I suggest that the character of the area will change regardless of any sort of state legislation,” he said.
“Can’t see why the land values will increase. Certainly vineyard values have decreased lately. Cropping land, we’re not sure but time will tell. But I can’t see the connection at this point.”
In a region with small blocks and diverse industries, farm sustainability is a big issue and despite being part of the viticulture and broadacre industries, Mr Heinrich says sometimes the two do not exactly see eye to eye.
“Had a bit of an issue with it where the vines have expanded into … [the] cropping area and change of land use has been granted for vineyards, say, and then there’s an automatic expectation that the pre-existing farmers will change their management practices at their cost to comply with their new neighbour,” he said.
“And [I am] not sure if that’s necessarily fair.”
It is an issue that has been raised in a parliamentary inquiry into sustainable farming, an inquiry Mr Heinrich and Mr Grocke say should have been finished before anyone started looking at protection laws.
“If you’ve got a damaged farming system, let’s fix it. Let’s make it useable, farmer friendly, then we can go about protecting the systems which we know are fixed and reasonable to work within,” Mr Grocke said.
But the man who drove the momentum for the laws, Dudley Brown, says they not only protect agricultural land, they encourage farmers to be more sustainable.
“If your vineyard’s right next to where the suburbs are, you’re half thinking, “Hey, I’ll be the next one subdivided and get the big pay cheque” and so maybe you don’t invest in your property, or if they know there’s no alternative they go “Right, I have got to make my living here, I have got to do the best I can.”
Photo:
Some think farmers markets are the way of the future (Amanda Collins: ABC)
Big picture
Mr Brown says there is also the bigger picture to consider.
“We set aside areas of the country, you know, 20, 50, 150 years ago that were so special we called them national parks because they should never be developed on. And when you think about food security for the country I think we really do need to think very similarly and start saying “Look, there’s land that’s too valuable to be used for anything but food production,” Mr Brown said.
Mr Grocke is not so sure.
“The thought process is ideal but in reality it’s a farce. Some of the soils in this western Barossa zone aren’t all class one and two soils of prime agricultural soils and some of them are absolutely poor,” he said.
“Some of the best soils … exactly straight outside this zone [at] Roseworthy and Freeling are designated for huge housing/industrial expansion.”
Mr Rau stresses the need for a balance between urban growth and agricultural needs.
“It is true that there are some areas in the north of Adelaide which are closer to the city than the Barossa Valley which are presently being used for farming that are marked for housing development over the next 30 years. That was a decision taken a while ago because if the city is to grow, it needs to have somewhere to grow,” he said.
Back in the Barossa, Jan Angas says the legislation will help preserve one of the most significant food cultures in the country, but she stops short of calling her beloved Valley a major food bowl.
“We use food security very loosely and I think we have got to be careful about that because I do think the Barossa is positioning themselves in a premium level of food, so it’s not about just having 25 million tonnes of any one item,” she said.
Each week, high-end producers including Jan Angas sell their wares at the popular Barossa Farmers Market. She suggests that with relatively-high land prices in the protected zone and limited space available, the more commodity-driven sector may do better if it switches focus too.
“Would you be better off looking at a niche market crop, like caperberries or horseradish or saffron or growing herbs or whatever,” she asked.
“I’m not suggesting anything in particular, but it’s time to have the discussion.”
Farmer Jeff Kernich is considering buying extra land outside the protected zone where it is cheaper and there are fewer restrictions, but the veteran dairy producer believes traditional agricultural pursuits can still prosper within the preserved area.
“I think that there’s still a good future for those of us with the right attitude to still keep farming in this area. It is generally, until years like this one, a very reliable area for growing hay and grain,” he said.
So while the character preservation laws are cause for celebration for some in the wine regions, it remains clear there are disputes to resolve before all land users consider them a victory for agriculture.
Video: Landmark laws for Barossa and McLaren Vale – watch the story from Landline
(Landline)
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First posted
The Ultimate ‘Grapeway’ to Bordeaux
The World’s Premier Wine Region is just a few hours from Paris.
Magnificent 17th century French palace, Grand Hotel de Bordeaux Spa is becoming internationally renowned as a prestigious address for discovering the world’s premier wine region in grand style. And as travelers make France their number one travel destination in Europe, wine lovers are finding their way to the world’s wine capital, where the region’s multitude of great wineries offer boundless opportunities to discover just what makes this the world’s premier wine producing region.
With the 2012 harvest about to get into full swing during the warm, colourful Autumn months, Bordeaux will once again come into its own for wine lovers and adventure seekers alike. To offer guests the very best of the region, Grand Hotel de Bordeaux offers its guests a concierge service like no other – the ultimate ‘grapeway’ to Bordeaux.
While wine tours of the Medoc, St-Emilion, Pomerol and Sauternes are on every visitor’s itinerary, privileged guests of this historic five-star hotel are welcomed to private tastings, exclusive tours and dinners with winemakers at legendary châteaux, and even VIP helicopter wine picnics.
A dedicated ‘Wine Conciergerie’ that takes care of all arrangements prior to a guest’s arrival boasts “the highest level of expertise ever provided by a hotel in the world of wine”.
For those looking for a more traditional expedition of the region, the hotel is also a refined stepping stone for discovering the graceful city’s rich history, culture and gastronomy.
Far from the world of wine, tailor-made tours for guests visit famous landmarks like the imposing World Heritage-listed Basilique Saint-Seurin, Cathédrale St-André and enchanting English-style gardens, Jardin Public. A fascinating insight into the evolution of Occidental art from the Renaissance to the mid-20th century is also unveiled at the Musée des Beaux-Arts.
Grand Hotel de Bordeaux’ one-Michelin-Star restaurant, Le Pressoir d’Argent meanwhile ranks among the most famous gourmet fine dining experiences in the city. Here celebrated chef, Pascal Nibaudeau presents the finest of French cuisine from the magnificent fresh produce of the region, from langoustines and caviar from Aquitaine to Belon oysters from Normandy.
A unique element of the restaurant, as its name suggests, is its famous lobster press, one of only five in the world, which compresses pasta and the lobster’s coral to create sauce accompanying the infamous Breton blue lobster. Chef Nibaudeau’s lobster is presented live to diners before being pan-cooked in the kitchens.
Another distinctive aspect instrumental to Pascal Nibaudeau’s culinary experience is his use of pairing fish with red wine. As a region infamous for both, Bordeaux and the innovative Chef present a totally new means of enjoying these delicacies in their natural surroundings.
Additionally this October, Grand Hôtel de Bordeaux Spa will embrace its historical heritage and revive the Brasserie l’Europe restaurant, re-launching the 19th century brasserie under its original name, Le Bordeaux. Opened in 1850 in Place de la Comédie, the thoughtfully-crafted renovation will honour the original platina of The Bordeaux.
Overseen by Pascal Nibaudeau, appointed Executive chef, Olivier Garnier will craft a new menu that will feature the great “classics” of typical South-West French cuisine, including wholesome delicacies such as suckling pig.
And after the wine tastings and gourmet dining, indulgent pampering comes courtesy of the Grand Hotel de Bordeaux’ Les Bains de Léa spa inspired by Ancient Roman baths and offering stunning views over Bordeaux’s historic skyline. The 90-minute Initiation Escape—a hot oil massage and deep-cleansing floral facial is something not to be missed.
Grand Hotel de Bordeaux Spa is newly-restored to its former glory following extensive restoration by Jacques Garcia in a visionary project that embraced a majestic trio of legendary neo-classical Bordeaux monuments also including Place de la Comédie and the Grand Théâtre.
About: Grand Hotel de Bordeaux Spa
Boiled Beef and the Billionaire: A Dinner with Georgia’s Future Leader
Dozens of guests are sitting around a table that is at least 20 meters long, piled high with plates of earthy east Georgian dishes. More home-cooked food is coming. I’ve got one eye on a bowl of khashlama that was just set down. So does the billionaire.
This all takes place a week ago in Kakheti, the hilly wine region of eastern Georgia, where khashlama is the signature dish. It might look like boiled beef, but that’s like saying wine looks like vinegar. It’s actually a heroic mix of fresh herbs, salt and beef, slow-cooked in an open cauldron. The billionaire, sitting across from me, spoons a chunk onto his plate. He is the only person holding his utensils upright, like a proper European (the English journalist with us might have done the same, I suppose, but he was still holding a pen and notebook). It’s not that I hadn’t expected such upstanding usage of the cutlery—earlier I watched him taste the homemade wine as if it had been corked in France in 1981—but there are plenty of foods, including some of the herbs on the table, that are just expected to be eaten by hand in Georgia. There’s something unsettling about a man, no matter what his tax bracket, using knife and fork at a country table in Kakheti.
(More from Roads Kingdoms: Palermo: the Soul of a City)
The billionaire is Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose coalition Georgian Dream would go on to hand Georgian President Mikheil “Misha” Saakashvili a stunning electoral defeat on Oct. 1. This meeting, while he was still just an untested contender, was my first with Ivanishvili. It’s billed as an interview, including me and journalists from Le Monde and the Financial Times, but I’m actually most excited just to just watch him eat. If you want to know who politicians really are, don’t interview them. Eat with them.
Case in point: Saakashvili. In December 2003, hours after he stormed the parliament and sent President Eduard Shevardnadze escaping out a side door and into retirement, I sat next to Saakashvili at a dinner table. He did not use a knife, or even a fork. I have continued to meet Misha at dinner tables over the years, and what I’ve noticed—besides his inability to sit still—is how he devours his food without bothering to taste it. That’s exactly how he has rebuilt his country: in a hurry. Overnight the cops stopped taking bribes, electricity was restored and the greasy port town of Batumi became a bright-lights, big-city tourist destination. Today, customs officers welcome you into the country with a smile and a bottle of wine after they stamp your passport.
(More from Roads Kingdoms: The Burgers of Benghazi)
But his tendency to stuff his face with reform has caused problems. Saakashvili’s United National Movement party held a monopoly of power from 2004 until this week. It was able amend or ignore the constitution at will. God help you if the state had an interest in your property, whether it be your house, business or garden plot. If you pissed off the wrong person, you could end up in jail, unless you paid your way out of it (one way the government funds its incarceration rate, the fourth highest in the world). The county’s 99.7% conviction rate is, well, another sign that the appetites of Saakashvili have made a bit of a mess of the judiciary.
This is why I am eating dinner with Ivanishvili.
Last year, the man who helped bankroll Saakashvili’s reforms—he clothed Misha’s army and equipped Misha’s police and paid the salaries of Misha’s parliamentarians—announced he was switching sides and would challenge Misha in the political arena.
“I’m a good analyst, I think. I began to analyze the situation and I saw the people don’t love him and that I was being lied to,” he said at the time.
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When Ivanishvili went rogue, Misha flipped. The government stripped Ivanishvili of his citizenship, and intimidated or harassed his supporters. But Ivanishvili has $6.4 billion dollars of his own, equal to half of Georgia’s annual national budget. In the U.S., Mitt Romney is furiously downplaying his personal wealth. But Ivanishvili doesn’t have to do that. In Georgia, there’s hope that a man as rich as him wouldn’t be beholden to anyone and wouldn’t need to use his office for more money or power. Ivanishvili also has a reputation for generosity in his home region. The rest of Georgia hopes some of that largesse will trickle down to them.
Before our khashlama meal, he had rallied at three wine region villages earlier in the day, talking about his “dream” (the name of his party) of a democratic Georgia and about his supporters who have been arrested in what he claims is pure harassment and intimidation. He has had to learn how to talk to an audience. He’s not an orator and he is not animated, but he has the charisma of a totally confident man.
“The public life is not for me,” he says. “Even having pictures taken—I’ve always hated it. Now it’s not a problem. To say it’s a pleasure, it’s not.”
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Cars have parked outside and Misha’s supporters, mostly the children of state employees, are honking and whistling. Tedo Japaridze, Misha’s former foreign minister who jumped to Ivanishvili’s side, says this is good, healthy.
A woman strikes a long chord on her accordion and starts singing about the beauty of a nearby region high in the mountains by the Chechen border. Ivanishvili turns away from the journalist to listen. “I like this song,” he says in English.
I’m looking hard for signs of a politician. I forget this guy chewing on beef is also the 153rd richest man in the world. And he is entirely at ease. But perhaps more importantly, so are the people around him. Sure there are a couple lackeys, but nobody is fawning over him. The other end of the table is hardly aware he’s here.
It’s easy to be taken with the man. I see myself swimming in his enormous swimming pool, enjoying his massive art collection and helping myself to his monster refrigerator. Here is a rich guy I could be friends with. I move to the other side of the table to get some face time.
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Several days earlier, Georgian TV broadcast a series of clips revealing systematic brutality in a Tbilisi prison. Prisoners were sodomized with batons and brooms. The scandal has rocked the country senseless. But while everybody is preoccupied with the details of the abuse and the authenticity of the tapes and the counter leaks that are appearing, they forget that the scandal is a just a symptom of a dysfunctional judiciary. I want to know just what he’s going to do about this pillar of justice, should he and his party get the majority he predicts.
“I’m going to put together a team of experts. Professionals will take care of this, not politicians,” he says, folding his hands on a knee. “I’m a good manager,” he adds, as if building a democratic institution were as easy as opening up a fast food franchise.
Then we talk about his coalition; a funky melee of liberals, conservatives and xenophobes. His candidate in Batumi, Murman Dumbadze, once told a colleague he wasn’t Georgian because he was not against the construction of a mosque in Adjara, a region with a large Georgian Muslim population. Ivanishvili insists the man is good. “He made a statement in the heat of argument and apologized for that. Everything else, about the mosque, that’s Saakashvili’s doing,” the billionaire asserts. “When it comes to tolerance, we want [a] new direction.”
“What does that mean?” I say, setting my hand on his arm—this is how Georgians talk, intimate even in a dispute.
“You’re from the US, right?” he asks. He begins to tell me about America’s attitude towards tolerance. He is taking this elsewhere, not where I intended to go.
“You can’t find a single nationalistic problem here,” he insists.
We’re talking past each other, wasting time. Where’s the next course? Maybe that will tell me something he won’t. A man brings out sizzling skewers of pork—tsvadi—and lays them across the table, but none of us will get a taste. Bidzina Ivanishvili is finished. It’s time to leave. I shake his hand and thank him for his kindness, though I’m not feeling much better informed about the man. Yes, he’s personable and generous, but a billionaire-politician who intends to build democratic institutions without a plan is every bit as suspicious as a Georgian that eats only with a knife and fork.
This post is in partnership with Roads Kingdoms, a new journal of food, travel and foreign correspondence.
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