Wine Tasting in the world-famous wine region of Bordeaux and St. Emilion, France

Week 29 in France 2/9-2/22/2026. We have been in our home in the village of Chabanais in the Charente department of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region of France since the middle of December. By the way, the Charente department is the northern most department of Southwest France.

Welcome to the 57th weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog.

This week, we loaded up our little Dacia Sandero Stepway and drove to Bordeaux. Elizabeth and I had been to the outskirt of the town but hadn’t yet gone into the center of town. Don had been in Bordeaux on business years ago and was eager to show us the Frog bar. We spent Monday through Thursday morning there and will share our impressions.

Our home in Chabanais

Things on the agenda this week:

• Visit Bordeaux with Cindy and Don while they are visiting this week
• Follow up “Mutuelle” health insurance
• French lessons
• Check up on the Vienne River and local flooding

I will get into a little detail about Bordeaux in the French Lifestyle and Culture section below.

Weather forecast:

Rain and wind for the week. Wind speed tapers off by the end of the week and so does the rain. WooHoo!

Why this Blog?

Long story short, we are “Baby Boomers” that have moved from Venice, Florida to the beautiful French countryside as retirees. After a little over a year of planning and fretting we sold everything in Venice and made the move on 1 August 2025.

We publish a brief update of our adventures every Sunday to share our experiences, tips and mistakes.

If you are thinking about a move to France? We are happy to share our thoughts and answer questions. Just drop a question in the comment section below and we will get back to you.

If you are wondering what got into our head and inspired us to make the move, check out some of our earlier posts. Again, if you have questions about our adventure, drop your questions in the comment section below.

We are learning a lot about the French culture and lifestyle as we make our life here and each week, we include in the blog some thoughts on what we learn. If you have a specific question about France, let us know and we are happy to answer. Other folks probably have the same question. If we don’t know the answer, we will share resource information.

This Week in General

Monday 16 Feb 2026

A nice drive of a just under 3 hours to Bordeaux, France

We piled Cindy and Don into the car with their luggage and Rosie with her bed and blanket our duffel bag and trusty Mexican train game and the new Marble game that Cindy gifted us and headed for Bordeaux. Cindy had arranged for a really nice Airbnb not far from one of the tram stations in Bordeaux in a suburb called Talence, so we had a great place to land when we arrived. We had a little light rain during the drive to Bordeaux, but still a nice drive. Our GPS took us on some back roads for the first 30 minutes or so as we left Chabanais, but eventually got us to the main N141 highway and then it was smooth sailing to Bordeaux. It was cool out but minimum rain.

We got to town early enough to load the TBM public transportation app on our phones and take a ride on the tram. Loading the app was pretty simple even for me to do with EBs help. We each bought 2 tickets and caught the tram after a 5-to-10-minute walk. The tram is modern and clean and easy to board if you don’t dilly dally. The ride lasted about 15 minutes into the town where we decided to walk around and get a feel for the center of town. We found the Frog bar. As I understand it, the bar is part of a chain of places located in a lot of big cities in Europe. All have names referencing a Frog. Pretty cool, but unfortunately the bar was closed until early evening so we decided to find a cafe for lunch. I’m telling you, you can’t go wrong for lunch in France.

We got a few steps in and then returned to the house via the tram. It was still early so we played marbles, drank some wine and decided that we all liked the Airbnb and booked it for our get together scheduled for September. More on that as we finalize the plans.

I did get a picture of the bar sign “The Frog and Rosbif” (The Frog and Roast Beef). The banner says something like, “SHAME ON ANYONE WHO DRINKS IT”. Don mentioned that he had had some really good beer here years ago.

Tuesday: Plenty of time to explore Bordeaux

We braved a little rain and took the tram to town. We had originally planned to go to the Cite du Vin. A slight mix up in plans as it was closed Tuesday. We will try again another time.

I took this picture from the boat as we cruised along the Garrone River. This is a picture of the world famous Cite Du Vin. It is an incredible museum all about wine from all over the world.

What we did though was really cool. We were walking along the quay on the bank of the Garrone River. Don spotted one of the boats in the fleet of Les Bateaux Bordelais. He jogged over just in time to snag 4 tickets, so we all boarded for a 90-minute cruise on the Garrone River.

A picture of the boat and some pigeons having a union meeting or something. We opted not to ride on the top deck. LOL

This boat is a great way to see another side of the city from the river. The cruise included a glass of wine, so duh, we took them up on it. The ride included a very informative tour guide that explained what we were seeing as we cruised along.

I took this picture of the city through the port side window of the boat. Sorry about the little lights dangling into the picture.

There had been a lot of severe flooding upriver so there was some pretty big tree debris floating in the river that our captain navigated around.

Wednesday: Wine tasting tour

Don had booked a private driving tour for an all-day wine tasting experience. What an awesome experience. Once again, our tour guide was very knowledgeable and took us to some of the premier wine chateaus (Class Grand Cru) around St. Emilion. We visited Chateau Franc Mayne, Chateau Martet, Chateau La Rose Monturon and the Chateau Corbin. Each chateau has a slightly different take on wine making but all are incredibly dedicated to fine wine.

At Franc Mayne the wine maker took us on a tour of the caves where the wine is stored and where he played as a child. The actual wine tasting was done in a small shop in the center of the medieval village of St. Emillion. Afterwards we strolled through the village.

We had lunch at Chateau La Rose Monturon with the owner and wine maker. Now that was a treat, chatting about wine and tasting their wines over a lunch of cheese and meats and bread. A special kind of heaven.

Chateau Corbin was interesting. It is completely woman run and the wine is very good. We were treated to a tour and wine tasting by one of the owners whose family has owned this winery for 4 generations.

EB and I have been on a lot of wine tours as you know. I think this one rates at the top. Many thanks to Don for setting it up.

Thursday

Thursday morning was a little hectic as Cindy and Don were flying home out of Bordeaux airport on a morning flight. They made it on time despite the fact that we had to drop them off in the parking garage because of poor signage and a wrong turn. Luckily there was one of those baggage carts handy as the bags were kind of heavy with wine. LOL

It turned out that their flight was delayed and there was concern that they might miss the connecting flight in Paris headed to Los Angeles. It all worked out and they arrived in LA only slightly worse for wear.

It was great having them visit us and we learned that we could handle visitors at our Chabanais village house without a hitch.

We made the roughly 2.5-hour drive home from Bordeaux through a little rain and Rosie was super happy to be home. We had a bunch of work to get started so we were glad to get it going.

We remembered to go to our French lesson and were on time. I feel like we are making good headway. Our 1-hour weekly lesson with a teacher and our daily Duo Lingo lessons are starting to pay off.

I got a follow up call from Hector to let us know that our solar power project is going well. The documents for local government approvals have been submitted with the Mairie of Chabanais. This approval process takes about a month. By the middle of March actual physical work might start. WHOHOO!!

Friday

Zoom meeting with Hugo regarding our “Mutuelle” health insurance, grocery shopping, laundry and work on the blog.

On Thursday I had a scheduled a call with Hugo for Friday morning as we want to get our Mutuelle insurance set up before I get my new hearing aids. We need to find a specialist for EB for follow up on her cancer too. She is doing well and no real concerns but follow up is prudent.

The Friday morning meeting went well except there was some connectivity issues. We got through it and I think we will be able to pick a plan over the weekend. Hugo sent over the proposals but, of course, it is all in French. Legal stuff always is. We will figure it out. While I worked on the translation of the insurance proposals, EB went grocery shopping. She stripped the guest room bed, and we closed up the Murphy bed and set up the computer in the guest room.

Saturday EB wanted to shop for shoes

I agree with her on that. We both need something a little more substantial than sneakers (Baskets). The French call them “baskets”. Basketball shoes are like sneakers after all. The day was pretty nice with temps in the upper 50s. We drove over to St. Junien and went to the shoe store then E.Leclerc and did a little shopping then over to Signorizza for lunch. We like the place, food is good, price is great and they serve wine.

We got a couple of pairs of shoes and are set for a while.

Flooding conditions continue throughout many departments in western France.

The Vienne River flooding in Chabanais has subsided for sure and even the rain intensity is subsiding too. I have checked out the weather report and see that our department (Charente) is still under “orange” flood warning. The ground soil is fully saturated, so any additional water has to run off.

So that was our week.

We drove to Bordeaux and had a great time with Cindy and Don getting to know the city and we had an awesome wine tour in St. Emilion

French Lifestyle and Culture

Bordeaux is a big city and as you know EB and I are not big city people.

That said, the city is nice to visit and has a lot to do. Bordeaux is one of the largest European metropolitan areas in Europe with over 1,400,000 population in the greater metropolitan area.

The city is located in Southwest France, is the prefecture of the Gironde department and is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. It is situated on the Garonne River and Gironde estuary which opens to the Atlantic Ocean which is about 50km (30 miles) west of the city center. On top of that, Bordeaux sits at the heart of the famous Bordeaux wine region. Combine all of that and you get an international trading center that has been going strong since the 2nd century thanks to the Romans planting the vineyards during their conquests.

I got a kick out of this picture with the car jutting out of a Bordeaux parking garage so had to take a picture.

Pedestrian shopping street in Bordeaux

We stopped in this nice little sidewalk cafe in Bordeaux for coffee and cognac.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

• Expecting nicer weather next week so work in the garden is in the plan
• Prep the cave for the firewood
• Work on the mutuelle insurance plan
• US and French Taxes. Follow up tax documents.

Weather forecast for next week

It looks like we have a nice week ahead. Highs in the mid 50^o F to upper 60^o F and mostly sunny. Overnight lows get down in the upper 40s.

Signing off for the week

As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family. It has been a fun week with Cindy and Don here. More to come next week.

Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below. We really enjoy hearing from you.

Wishing you a good week (Bonne Semaine)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com