Ausone: Bordeaux Region Touring Game by Savvy Mom
Ruth Paget
The
ancient Roman poet Ausone from Aquitaine (ancient name for the Bordeaux region)
lends his moniker to one of the region’s most famous château in St. Emilion –
Château Ausone.
There
are several different wine areas under the umbrella regional name of
Bordeaux. Many offer great photo
opportunities for children and tasting opportunities for adults with a
designated driver.
You
do not need to be an expert on Bordeaux wines like Robert Parker, but you
should have some knowledge of what you are going to see and taste, if you are
planning a trip to Bordeaux.
Bordeaux
wines from all regions are considered to be reliable luxury products with no
rotten cork or off smell problems.
Without
further ado, the Bordeaux Touring Wine Game could go like this:
Level 1 – Bordeaux Wine
Background
Read
The Essential Guide to Bordeaux Wines by the Bordeaux Wine School and Sophie
Brissaud.
Level 2 – Bordeaux Area
Recipes
Try
making recipes from The Bordeaux Kitchen:
An Immersion into French Food and Wine, Inspired by Ancestral Traditions
by Tania Teschke.
Level 3 – General Wine
Reference Book
For
general reference on wine read The Oxford Companion to Wine edited by Jancis
Robinson and Julia Harding.
This
tome still reigns supreme as a great textbook to learn about all wine regions.
Level 4 – Médoc and
Haut-Médoc Wine Regions
In
this region, there is a scenic Route des Châteaux for family photos. Make sure to have a designated driver, if you
also go tasting in this region.
You
can check in the Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson to find out
information about the 1855 Classification of Bordeaux Wines, which is still a
good guide to the very high-quality wines in this region.
Level 5 – Sauternes
Wine Region
The
châteaux here are hidden behind forests as if they were bees making honey. Sauternes is a very sweet wine that sometimes
becomes viscous with age.
Level 6 – St. Emilion
Wine Region
Châteaux
Ausone is the most famous winery here.
This
village has many hills and caves that you can drive through around town.
Level 7 –
Entre-Deux-Mers Wine Region
This
wine region is on a peninsula with the Garonne and Dordogne Rivers on either
side of the peninsula.
The
wine region’s name is translated as “between two seas.”
Entre-Deux-Mers
wines go well with raw seafood platters, especially with raw oysters from the
Bay of Arcachon near Bordeaux.
Level 8 – Graves Wine
Region
This
is a white wine region near the Sauternes wine village.
Its
white wines go well with fish and seafood dishes.
Level 9 – Plan a Trip
to Bordeaux
Use
a travel guide such as the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Dordogne, Bordeaux, and
the Southwest Coast by DK Travel to plan a trip to the Bordeaux region.
Level 10 – Learn Tourist
French
Memorize
a Dummies Guide to French and then translate yourself responses for the
Intermediate and Advanced Level French Conversation Games on the Savvy Mom Ruth
Paget blog.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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