Graves/Pessac-Léognan/Sauternes/Loupiac

The oldest vineyard, closest to Bordeaux, and named after its soil, established Bordeaux’s reputation and glory with the famous Château Haut-Brion. Nowadays, many great wineries such as Château Pape Clément, Smith Haut Lafitte, and Domaine de Chevalier are located around the villages of Pessac, Léognan and Talence. Tasting the highly regarded wines from Graves and Pessac-Léognan means not only discovering red and dry white wines, which are just as fabulous as their neighbors in the Médoc region and Saint-Emilion, but also understanding the importance of the extraordinary soil on the quality of the wine. Here you’ll taste wines made with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes – Merlot for red wines and Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon for white. You’ll be introduced to their distinctive characteristics in order to fully comprehend their complex, supple and elegant aromas.

Further south, the soil of Sauternes combined with a distinctive microclimate due to the Ciron River’s proximity produces remarkable sweet wines in the vineyards of Sauternes, Barsac and Loupiac.

While Château d’Yquem is world renowned, other wineries also produce absolutely outstanding wines such as Guiraud, Suduiraut, and Clos Haut Peyraguey.

The grape harvesting technique is unique here because the grapes are picked late to favor noble rot, also called botrytis cinerea, which concentrates the sugar in the grapes. Tasting these wines will take your palate on a journey of citrus, honey and dried fruit aromas. Sweet wines are best when drunk with savory foods. We have a specific tour for this called “The Great Escape”, which includes a picnic lunch served with matching sweet wines.

In Loupiac, the passionate, enthusiastic winemakers produce rich, elegantly structured wines with notes of dried, exotic fruits and gingerbread. You’ll roam along the pathways and slopes of this appellation along the Garonne River and discover the know-how that has made Loupiac wines so famous.