Entre-Deux-Mers

The Travel Pages meets two very different winemakers while touring the vineyards of the Entre-Deux-Mers winemaking region near Bordeaux.

Where is Entre-Deux-Mers?

They call it Entre-Deux-Mers, which means ‘between two seas’, and it is almost a solid mass of vines clutched between the arms of the Garonne and Dordogne rivers, east of Bordeaux.

It’s not the best-known, perhaps, but it is one of the most historic parts of the whole Bordeaux region, with walled towns, churches, and abbeys poking above the sea of green vines. Within 15 minutes of leaving Bordeaux city centre you’re driving through rolling countryside, in one of the prettiest parts of this region that Julius Ceasar called Aquitaine, the country of the waters.

Visiting Maison Ginestet in Entre-Deux-Mers

There may not be the big names like Margaux and Saint-Émilion here, but that means the owners have more time for you and there are vineyards ancient and modern, large and small to explore. One of the biggest is Ginestet, less than twenty minutes from Bordeaux, though it isn’t in fact a vineyard at all as it owns no vines of its own.

Ginestet is a négociant, which means it buys in grapes from other people, and it has been doing so since 1897. It buys in quite a lot, as just one of its two cellars holds between six and ten million bottles at any one time. None of the bottles is labelled, as these are put on later according to the needs of the markets, as Ginestet exports all over the world. The whole system is computer controlled, and the bottling plant produces up to 210,000 bottles every single day. It’s wine production on a massive scale, but the tasting at the end shows that you can combine quantity and quality.

Visiting Château Montlau in Entre-Deux-Mers

At the opposite end of the scale is Château Montlau, overlooking the Dordogne near the village of Moulon. ‘From my back door,’ says the vineyard owner Armand Schuster de Ballwil, ‘I can see the vineyards of Saint-Émilion, Pomerol and Château Petrus, the most expensive wine in the world. They’re only on the other side of the river, so my grapes are growing in very similar soil to them.’

Montlau means the hill of laurels, and there was once a Roman village on the hill on which the house now stands. In 830AD a prominent family built a wooden tower on the hill to control the area, and then in 1150 a stone tower was added, part of which still remains. This is vineyard visit as history, and fascinating it is too.

The château’s winery dates back to 1472, and the estate’s three wines are made in farm buildings that look almost as old. ‘Other vineyards are modernising,’ says the owner, ‘but I am trying to take the winery back to the way it was in the 19th century. Stainless steel doesn’t make wine: grapes make wine.’

Château Montlau produces only 150,000 bottles a year: less than Ginestet does in one day. They make three different wines, and while the owner says that ‘We do not produce wines here of the first-class quality’, those wines are good enough for 80% of them to be exported. Outside the winery buildings, the serenity of ducks and ducklings swimming on a pond must add some relaxing qualities to the taste of the wine. So too must the charm and laid-back nature of Monsieur Armand Schuster de Ballwil himself. He gazes out over his vines and smiles: ‘The grapes enjoy to see the owner every morning!’

Maison Ginestet

19 avenue de Fontenille, 33360 Carignan-de-Bordeaux
05 56 68 81 82
maison-ginestet.com

Château Montlau

33420 Moulon
05 57 84 50 71
chateau-montlau.com