I count us very lucky as a business to be able to offer you a gallery of photos by Patrick Hudgell. Whatever you think of the man himself, he’s a good snapper!
This year Patrick and a gang of friends went on our Bordeaux Winetrail with Toby and Gerard. Photographs (and videos) are always the most viewed items in our Newsletters. Let’s see if it’s true this time, but that’s where I’d put my money. So that’s why I’m always grateful to receive photos from all our customers – that’s a heavy hint, please send them in, I love ’em.
Patrick’s gallery is hosted within our Flickr photostream. Here’s a link to all of our photos , and here’s a link to the new gallery of Bordeaux.
I’ve chosen 4 pictures to give you a flavour. Just click on any of the images to enlarge them.
1. Hard At Work.
The questions I’m asked most often by people asking about Chain Gang holidays revolve around whether people will be able to keep up, how hard is the cycling, etc. I like this photo because it explains a lot about our culture that I struggle to put into words. We don’t lie in the sun all day, and we don’t cycle all day. But sometimes we do lie in the sun, and that’s great.
2.A Rare Treat – Tasting Direct From The Barrel.
Our final tasting of the week is at Château Le Tour De By in the Médoc. This is a prestigious estate – their wine was chosen for the wedding of Prince Edward in 1999.
Although this is a bike tour, and of course we all love cycling, our Bordeaux Winetral features a very interesting itinerary of vineyards and wine tastings. We taste crisp dry Bergeracs as well as exquisite dessert wines from Monbazillac; quality, lesser-known reds such as Château du Raux in the Haut Médoc, but also famous wines like Château Lynch-Bages, a classified growth in 1855, and the Premier Grand Cru Classé Franc-Mayne from St Emilion.
I hope that people go away from our Bordeaux Winetrail surprised at how much they’ve learnt while having fun, and this photograph illustrates the rare opportunity to taste wine direct from the barrel, before its been bottled. It’s not the finished article, it will taste better after 8 years in a bottle, but I think it shows terrific respect on the part of the Vigneron – which incidentally is typical of Tour de By.
3.What we’re about.
Although I love our vineyard visits, the history we meet, our visits to caves, castles and other landmarks, we’re all about the cycling at the end of the day. It’s tricky to capture cyclists that look like they’re having fun and yet remain photogenic.
In this instance he’s helped by Linda riding a road bike in a skirt, which I always think looks very classy.
4.Finally, Stuart With a Correctly Sized Bottle .
One thing we discover early on in our Winetrail is that most wines are stored not only in a standard 75 cl bottle, but also in a Magnum, a 1.5 litre bottle.
As soon as we’re a group of 12 or 13 people, we need two bottles of wine just so that everyone can have a single glass.
And that’s precisely when you should order a Magnum, for no other reason than that they look magnificent.
A reminder:
Here’s the whole gallery. And Here is a larger collection of this and other galleries.
