Stop three in expensive wine country was Sauterne, home of ... the Sauternes (they sometimes make it really easy). You may know these wines from their sweetness and half bottle sizes that you see in the States. Turns out the french hate the half bottle idea, instead preferring to open a bottle of this little sweetness, and just keeping what they don't drink in the frig for a couple of weeks. Where we would drink Sauternes as a dessert wine, the french prefer to drink them as an aperitif. Similar to the champagne thing, they make big bottles of this stuff - like double magnums - but you have to figure if you're going to open the equivalent of four bottles of this stuff - you better have invited a lot of friends.
We stopped by the cooperative in town, where we were able to taste a lot of wines - they gave us three that represented the range of the Sauternes - sweet, mineral, refined. Need to have a tasting party with those three.
We also met a crazy french woman, owners of the Chateau shown here - I know it's hard to tell from the picture, but these vines are about 60 - 80 years old. Anyway, she was telling us what foods went well with Sauterne - until she mentionned that it went well with Roquefort, the infamous blue cheese. Knowing how difficult it to match a wine with a cheese, I was surprised and confirmed, "Roquefort?". To which she responded, "Absolutely. It's incredible", stared off into space for a few seconds, and then just quietly said, "Yes. Roquefort". I thought she was going to need a cigarette.
