5 1/2 days in Bordeaux

Yes, I had a wonderful time. Yes, I found cheap wine, and yes, I found really good cheap wine. The full account is here (though, at 1,100 words, you might want to read it in stages). Hopefully, I'll also be able to get some pictures up in a slide show over the next week or so.

What's worth noting now is something that I think many of us in the New World forget about French wine. They have been doing it a very, very long time, and that makes a difference that is almost impossible to understand.

The modern California wine industry dates from the end of World War II, or about 60 years. Many of the 14 chateaux I visited had vines that old or older. In Texas, where so many winemakers and winery owners are eager to hurry up and make great wine, our vines are 20 years old at best. The average age of most of the vines at the dozen or so chateaux I visited is almost 10 years older than that.

Age brings experience which brings quality. Jean de Cournuaud, the ninth generation of his family to make wine at Chateau Mazeris, told me he had to pull out some vines a couple of years ago because they were too old and had stopped producing. The vines had been planted at the beginning of the 20th century, when France had been devastated by phylloxera. That's like finding out your grandfather played baseball with Babe Ruth. France just doesn't make wine. It makes history.