Château de Mirambeau is a Renaissance jewel updated into a 5 star hotel with a one Michelin star dining room. With 40 rooms surrounded by 8 hectares, there is plenty of room to relax when visiting the wine country between Cognac and Bordeaux. For those who love cognac there is a special room just for that, called a Cognatheque with many high quality choices. We are more of a red wine family and had plenty of excellent opportunities to compare with our native Cali wine country just north of our home base in San Francisco.

I have this theory that local wines and local cuisines are designed together in a symbiotic relationship that adds up to well more than the sum of the parts. This theory was (once again!) proven correct with our lovely meal in the château’s Les Deux Levriers and the next night at the highly recommended Comptoir du Marché just a short drive to the sleepy town of Jonzac.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, Saint-Émilion is sacred terroir on the right bank of the Dordogne river in Bordeaux wine country. It was the Romans who originally planted the vines as early as the 2nd century so they’ve had plenty of time to get it right. The town features a Romanesque church, presumably built by the Romans while not drinking wine since it seems to have held up quite well. And, because we visited on one of the Journées du Patrimoine or Heritage Days, every culturally important attraction was open and free!

The wines of Saint-Émilion are a blend consisting of Merlot (60%), Cabernet Franc (30%) with a soupçon of Cabernet Sauvignon (10%). We spent a pleasant hour or two sampling quite a few at Établissements Martin where we played the game of “One of these wines is twice the price of the other. Can you tell which one?”. We came away with a 12 bottle assortment of the local stuff and, since there is no tax added to shipments out of the country, the shipping was basically “free”. Bring a credit card.