Preparing for Our Next Guest

...it's easy for this particular person. She and I were supposed to go a vineyard in the Saint-Émilion wine-growing area near Bordeaux when she visited in 2005, except that our TGV was a half an hour late and we had just a ten-minute window to catch a bus. The SNCF (train company) gave us back a percentage of our ticket price, but we've never (sigh) in all these years (another sigh) gotten back to Bordeaux. 

So we'll just have to improvise until our schedules allow...

Meanwhile, here is what Wikipedia has to say about Saint-Émilion...

Saint-Émilion is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) for wine in the Bordeaux wine region of France, where it is situated in the Libourne subregion on the right bank of the Dordogne. Saint-Émilion is registered as a world heritage by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Its 5,400 hectares (13,000 acres) represent 67.5% of the total area of wine-producing communes (Saint-Émilion, Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes, Saint-Hippolyte, Saint-Étienne-de-Lisse, Saint-Laurent-des-Combes, Saint-Pey-d’Armens, Saint-Sulpice-de-Faleyrens, Vignonet, and a part of the Libourne commune) and 6% of the total Bordeaux vineyard.

The wines of Saint-Émilion are typically blended from different grape varieties, the three main ones being Merlot (60% of the blend), Cabernet Franc (nearly 30%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (around 10%).

I'll drink to all that.