The Lions of Bordeaux...

When I visited the chateaux and vineyards in Bordeaux. I was knocked over by the profusion of stone lions everywhere.

No wonder!

The kingly lion is sitting right on Bordeaux' coat of arms. As well as guarding so many entry ways of the finest chateaux..For example at Chateau Haut-Brion.Now here's a funny thing. Where I live, in Astoria, NY
(just 9 minutes from Bloomingdales on the N train -most multi-culti town in the USA) there is a profusion of LIONS!
38th street is particularly littered with these stone lions!Only between Broadway and 34th Avenue,
in case you should go looking for a pride or two.This has set me thinking...
Have some Bordeauxoise winemakers moved to Astoria? ? ?Will we soon see some vineyards springing up on my turf?
Did I mention that Bordeaux is also inundated with stone sphinxes?
The French sphinx has a coiffed head and the bust of a young woman.
Often she is wearing ear drops and pearls
and her body is naturalistically rendered as a recumbent lion. Chateau Margaux has an impressive pair guarding their stairway entry.Chateaux de Malle makes a lovely Sauturnes, well protected by a brace of sphinx.

I'm wondering when an infusion of sphinxes are coming to Astoria? Could they come to my street? We could definitely use a few sphinxes on 31st Avenue.

Picking Grapes in Alsace

I really only got to pick grapes one time.

At the October harvest in Riquewihr, Alsace, one of the most beautiful harvests anywhere. And that was only because Ed Lauber of Lauber Imports put in a good word with one of his vineyards. My 'payment' for standing around holding grape shears in blistering hands, sitting at the long vineyard table and sharing a huge luscious lunch. Alsacian grape picking is a family affair. Everyone knows everyone else. And every member of the family shows up to help with les vendanges.

At Regaleali Vineyard in Sicily I just watched, as the pickers

sing, chat and pick the grapes in a most leisurely fashion. You can take cooking lessons there with the Countess Anna Tasca-Lanza.

I only imagined these Tuscan grape pickers. I was never there at harvest time. Tuscan vineyards are some of the most beautiful and idlyic.

In Napa Valley, California, the grape pickers don't walk.They run or race to get the job done.

More imagined grape pickers, this time in Burgundy where

they used to carry big straw baskets/paniers on their shoulders.You can sometimes still find these at French ebay.

You'll find all kinds of wine-related goodies on ebay.fr I should know. I spent hours looking for so-called still life objects. I've got a kitchen closet full of taste-vins to prove it!

Imagined 19th century Bordeaux pickers.

More imaginary grape picker doodles.The figures are more fun to draw than the grapes.

I'm much better at wielding a paintbrush than a pair of grape shears/secateurs . Some passerby on La Route du vin in the Medoc insisted on taking this quaint picture of the artiste at work.

My Bordeaux 4

Here's what wikipedia has to say about Bordeaux the second largest wine region in the world with about 117, 000 hectares of vineyards. 57 appellations, 9,000 wine-producing châteaux, 13,000 grape growers, 400 traders and sales of 14,5 billion euros annually. With an annual production of over 700 million bottles, Bordeaux produces large quantities of everyday wine as well as very expensive wines.

*Please note these lions of Bordeaux (and I might add Astoria..) guarding the entrance in this watercolor act as camouflage for any listing turrets etc. I did get to do a series of 4 châteaux prints.You can find them here.

Did you know I can put up a shack, plant some vines and call myself Châteaux Margaux-Gillot if I live in Margaux? The problem is I'd need a ton of $$$$, same as in Napa, to own the smallest scrap of land there, so forget that bright idea Gillot!

Now there are Les "garagistes" as they 're called...Well they don't exactly live in garages but they sprouted up in the '90s, in reaction to the traditional Bordeaux wine style, which is highly tannic and requires long ageing in the bottle. The garagistes developed a style more consistent with international wine norms. For reds, this means "bigger, bolder, fruitier wines with sometimes a higher alcohol content." Robert M. Parker Jr. loves them. Just try to get a sip of "châteaux" Le Pin. Bon Chance mes amis!

Bi-annually the La Fête de la Fleur crowns the end of VinExpo. This grand soirée is attended by the top chateaux owners and held at a different chateau. I got to go by taking pictures for Wine Enthusiast magazine. Jean-Michel Cazes, one of Bordeaux's kings, played host at Chateau Cantenac-Brown. A huge tent was set up on the grounds and after the cocktail hour 1500 eminent wine folk sat down and ate a four-course dinner of regional dishes. Between courses giant corks and bottles paraded around on stilts cirque-de-soleil style.

By the end of dinner it was pouring (not just wine I might add). On leaving, we each got a huge Bordeaux red umbrella with the Bontemps du Médoc seal on it. This is one umbrella I've managed never to lose.

When I first started going to Bordeaux, I was taken on early morning tours to the various châteaux. I happen to have very limited capacity for alcohol, like 1/2 a glass puts me to sleep or I misbehave...so...when I was offered a morning taste of Châteaux Petrus..I said no :( "Je regrette TOUT!" So there you have my deepest, darkest secret. Please don't tell. Bordeaux has other delights besides wine, like fluted little cakes, cannéles. You can also take home (well not really, if customs has anything to say about it) a small Merlot plant. Still it's nice to know just in case the FDA should change their minds...

Every Fall before the harvest, in fact tomorrow on 9 septembre, the 21st Marathon du Médoc Race will be run through the Médoc vineyards. Perhaps the only marathon where runners get to stop en route at chateaux and refresh themselves on wine as well as water. Thousands (up to 7,500 is the limit) of runners invade the vineyards starting at Bordeaux and running 48 miles away to Pauillac - making it the longest marathon in the world.Ah "days of wine and roses".. If you walk through Bordeaux's vineyards you'll see rose bushes lining the front rows of the vines. This is not just because they're classy and smell nice. No way. These are "working roses." If a nasty pest like Phylloxera attacks the vines, the roses will catch it first and let the winemaker know how to proceed.

I do still go to all the wine tasting events they'll let me into.. There's a Riesling tasting next Tuesday. Cya Well these days I'm joined at hip to cups of chocolat chaud and as Shakira says, those hips don't lie.

My Bordeaux 3

Back in the vineyard and I do mean IN the vineyard - I was lucky to sketch out in the fields during the wine harvest on many occasions. Painting grape pickers was right up my alley. They're figurative after all. And I thought/hoped that if I could throw in a grape picker or two, it would distract from my inept not-so-neoclassical architecture renderings. The wonderful painting I used as a background here is by Roger Chapelian-Midy, 1938. I found it in a book bought in France, BORDEAUX, L'ART ET LE VIN by Robert Coustet.If I could only add a sign under the chateaux paintings saying, "Please kindly focus on the grape pickers and ignore the chateau. Thank you very much." The background here is a watercolor sketch sheet by British artist, Robert Hills (1769 - 1844).Many artists have focused on painting/drawing workers. This background is a recolored ad of Jean-François Millet's famous reapers. Van Gogh did many copies/sketches from Millet's reapers. Georges Seurat, who everyone thinks only painted "Sunday in the Park" was a great fan of painting workers. There are plenty hanging in the NY MET.I collected grapes shears whenever I was at la vendanges/ la vendemmia/ the harvest. Sometimes I collected them off of Ebay too... You can find barrels, baskets and other wine tools there galore. September - October is grape picking time in France, Italy, Napa and most vineyards anywhere. Trying to visit during the harvest can be difficult. The roads are clogged with slow-moving tractors and other wine-related vehicles. It used to be just donkeys/horses + carts and for a very long time Chateau d'Yquem stuck with this old method in their vineyard as well. The technology of picking the grapes has evolved way beyond anyone's imagination, but many fine vineyards still believe in hand picking the grapes, a costly and slow method. These grape cutters I got at the Regaleali vineyard in Sicily. Winebow sent me there for a week to paint la vendemmia - what a treat! The pickers are rather casual about their picking and sometimes you think more singing and smoking is getting done than picking, but you'd never know it from tasting Regaleali's Bianco, an intense and well structured white. Reasonably priced too. This wonderfully evocative photo of grape pickers is from the CHATEAU LATOUR book. If you know anything at all about wines, you can be sure every single grape here is hand picked lovingly and with the greatest of care.