GOING PLACES: Wine? Most certainly. But Bordeaux is now a great destination for everything gourmet from cakes to caviar, writes Marie-Claire Digby
Bordeaux, grande dame of the wine world, has undergone a transformation in recent years, under the direction of its controversial mayor, Alain Juppé. The city's magnificent 18th-century centre is being restored, a new tram system has been installed, the Garonne river frontage has been spruced up, and new parks and promenades are being created.
The city, once a strategic trading port and always a major player in the wine industry, is shaking off its reputation as a stuffy and bourgeois city, and from under layers of grime, a more vital and vibrant Bordeaux is emerging.
As a destination for a gourmet break, the city has many rivals, but few equals. The vineyards begin almost at the city boundaries, and in the elegant shopping streets of Bordeaux's "Golden Triangle" (encompassing Cours de l'Intendance, Cours Georges Clémenceau and Allées de Tourny) and the atmospheric alleys of the old town, there are myriad shopping, eating and drinking options.
New-style wine-tasting opportunities, some combining art and wine, or sport and wine, are broadening the appeal of this traditional Bordeaux activity. The Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB) is actively marketing the city, as well as its most famous export. Indeed, the two can hardly be considered in isolation.
A gourmet walkabout should begin at (2, Allées de Tourny) where more than 15,000 bottles line the walls of a dramatic four-storey spiral staircase. The price of the bottles increases as you ascend, from everyday drinking on the ground floor, to breathtakingly priced rare and old vintages on the top floor. No, it's not sudden-onset vertigo, they really do cost that much.
A few doors further on, at number 26 Allées de Tourny, the bitter-sweet smell of really good chocolate draws customers through the doors of Chocolatier Cadiot-Badie, where the Bordeaux truffle, studded with raisins steeped in Bordeaux, is the house speciality. Cadiot-Badie is also worth a visit for its collection of antique chocolate boxes and books, original display cabinets, and dazzling mounds of candied fruits and jellies.
Turn left onto rue Michel Montaigne, leading to Place des Grands-Hommes, and you will find knives for any purpose from skinning a rabbit to eating fish at the fascinating Coutellerie-Cisellerie Ets Castant (5, rue Michel Montaigne). The covered market of Galerie des Grands-Hommes is home to maker of what is reputed to be the best canelé in town. This vanilla and rum-scented cake, a Bordelaise speciality, was originally made by nuns as a way of using up the yolks that were discarded when egg-white was used in the "fining" (removing of particles that make a haze) process of winemaking.
Next up is the Black Sea Caviar shop at 5, rue Martignac, in the shadow of the Baroque Church of Notre-Dame, where you can taste and buy the product of Bordeaux's growing sturgeon farming industry, as well as the Russian and Iranian imports. Caviar was harvested in the Gironde river up until the 1960s, and the area now produces consistently high-quality caviar from Siberian sturgeon raised on aquafarms.
Oysters are always on the menu in Bordeaux, but to taste them at their best - that is, with a cool breeze blowing off the calm blue waters in which they have been raised - it is necessary to travel outside the city to the bay of Europe's leading oyster breeding nursery. This haven of the wealthy Bordelaise, who decamp here en famille for the season - July 14th to August 15th - is an inland tidal sea with a necklace of picturesque and quintessentially French resorts and oyster farms perched on its sandy shores.
Arcachon town is the best known of these, but Cap Ferret, on the opposite side of the bay, is the jewel in the crown and the place the French particularly like to keep for themselves. Philippe Starck has a summer house here, and in summer a special TGV train runs from Paris direct to Arcachon, where the wealthy weekenders pick up their motor-boat and speed across the bay to their summer boltholes. Regarded as the St Tropez of the Atlantic, Cap Ferret doesn't so much scream wealth and taste as whisper it seductively. But before you answer back, make sure to do so in perfectly accented French. After all, you're likely to be the only non-French person around, and that's the way they'd like to keep it.
EAT/DRINK AND BE BORDELAIS
Bordeaux's restaurant scene veers
strongly toward the traditional brasserie/bistro, and one of the best is Café
Gourmand, almost in the centre of the "Golden Triangle" shopping area at 3, rue Buffon. Chef Bruno Oliver specialises in the food of the south-west. Salad of tender green beans with peaches, duck breast and a vanilla oil was light and refreshing, while the seven-hour cooked lamb was surprisingly delicate and fragrant, and the crème brûlée was reassuringly speckled with vanilla seeds. As you'd expect, the wine list was top notch. Expect to pay about €35 a head before wine (Closed Sunday and Monday lunch; 00-33-5-56792385).
For a more casual lunchtime pitstop, a pre-dinner apéritif, or a late-night
drink, the fantastically decorated Le Petit Bois at 18, rue du chai des Farines is just the place. Sit in a comfy armchair and enjoy the cave-like interior dotted with full-sized trees strung with fairy lights. Drinks come with a complimentary selection of nibbles, sweet or savoury – €6 for a glass of
champagne and selection of charcuterie, cheese, olives and bread. (Mon-Sat: 7 p.m.-2 a.m.)
It's no surprise to learn that the management of this place is also behind
Ailleursà Bordeaux on Place du Parlement, where you can browse
second-hand travel guides and try the Moroccan slippers, while sipping a
camomile tea and looking out on one of the city's most picturesque squares.
ASK THE EXPERT
Dewey Markham Jnr isn’t a very Bordelaise name, but the New York-born writer and guide is a renowned expert on the Bordeaux wine industry, and can open doors to the most prestigious châteaux. Markham’s wine tours are personalised – there are no fixed durations or itineraries – and he is a gifted raconteur. “You can drink water with your meal, or wine. Why take the bus when you can get there by Porsche?” he reasons.
In a career with more twists and turns than the Garonne river, Markham has
been a student at NYU (Masters in Cinema); the Culinary Institute of America; and Bordeaux University's school of Oenology. He was also a director of Paris cookery school, La Varenne, and introduced wine studies to its curriculum.
Markham has also written extensively on wine, including the award-winning 1855: A History of the Bordeaux Classification, which almost came to nothing when his initial research was lost. “I began the research in New York, and intended to finish it in Bordeaux. I travelled over on the QEII, and my trunk never made it. It went to Bermuda instead.”
Beginning all over again in Bordeaux, Markham was given access to all the
major châteaux and their archives, and conducted four years of research.
The finished book was well received in America, where it won the James
Beard award for wine book of the year. More importantly for the author, who had married and settled in Bordeaux, the French liked it, too. Markham now has access to winemaking facilities and tasting rooms that would be off-limits to all but the most well-connected visitor. A full day vineyard tour and tasting with Markham costs €400 for up to six people.
DMjWineworks, 96, rue Laroche, 33000 Bordeaux, 00-33-5-56521351,
dmjwineworks.com. The Bordeaux wine school (École du Vin de Bordeaux) also offers a range of classes and courses, from a two-hour tasting session at the Maison du Vin de Bordeaux (€20) to weekend courses with vineyard visits as well as instruction and tasting (€399, full board included), and three-day intensive courses (€599, full board). Bordeaux L'École du Vin, 1, Cours du 30 Juillet, 33075 Bordeaux,
00-33-5-56002266, www.ecole.vins-bordeaux.fr, e-mail ecole@vins-bordeaux.fr
BOUTIQUE CHIC
La Maison Bord'eaux – the errant apostrophe represents the city's crescent moon logo – has been described as "Tricia Guild meets Terence Conran", and it doesn't disappoint. Brigitte Lurton and
Jean-Marc Domingo's six-bedroom boutique hotel is a sympathetic, but unashamedly modern renovation of an 18th-century stable block and adjoining townhouse, minutes from Bordeaux's city centre.
The cobbled courtyard is landscaped and planted with restrained good taste. So far, so predictable. But go inside the airy three-storey main house, or the stone stable block, and it’s a very different story.
Brigitte Lurton is an engaging Frenchwoman with a passion for design and an affinity with colour. She has no architectural training, but knew exactly what she wanted to achieve at La Maison Bord’eaux, and drew up the plans for its transformation herself. The mammoth project was completed in just nine months.
The house's six guest rooms are each named after Brigitte and Jean-Marc's children. The one most often requested is "Diegue", which has a sunny terrace overlooking the rooftops of Bordeaux. There is also a
large family suite with a separate sitting room. The furniture is custom-built – "we couldn't find exactly what we wanted so we designed it ourselves and had it manufactured", and equipped with anti-UV windows, Hermès bathroom products, Italian linen, and Internet access.
There is a library and a wine bar, and dinner – with a seafood menu, a cheese menu and a “great wines” menu to choose from – can be booked in advance. Even the tableware is unique, specially commissioned in shades of blue/grey – “the colour of the Bordeaux sky” and red – “there is a traditional Bordeaux red, but I didn’t really like it, so I played with it a bit,” Lurton explains.
La Maison Bord'eaux is a refreshing example of Bordeaux's mission to shake off its stuffy, conventional reputation. The refurbishment of the landmark Grand Hôtel de Bordeaux by the Radisson Hotel group, due
for completion next year, will provide the next talking point.
La Maison Bord'eaux, 113 rue Albert Barraud, 33000 Bordeaux, 00-33-5-56440045, www.lamaisonbord-eaux. com. €110-180 per night B&B. (Closed in August)
Air France flies Dublin-Bordeaux daily, prices from €216. Bordeaux-Mérignac airport is served by a shuttle bus which runs every 30 minutes to the city centre, €11 return. Useful websites: www.bordeaux-tourisme.com; bordeaux-city.com and vins-bordeaux.fr/anglais