Cousin & Compagnie

A perfect rainy day in the vines with owners and representatives of the vines and fields to bring reality of vineyard life. Our picnic lunch was perfect! A most enjoyable ride with strangers who became tasting buddies. I wish to do more..

I did the full day small group tour of Saint Emillion and Medoc with Julie on a mid-March Saturday. I was extremely happy with this tour. I did a lot of research to find a small group tour that included both regions, had at least three chateaux wine tastings, a minimum of 12 wines, and a tour of the medieval village of Saint Emillion that did not start too early (9 am). The itinerary on the website was exactly our route. The entire schedule is really well thought out so that there is almost no repetition in terms of styles of wine, etc. The first wine tasting takes place at a small wine shop in St Emillion and that turned out to be an excellent introduction to both the wines of that appellation, as well as the Left Bank classification structures and pricing. The van was comfortable enough; we were completely full but I did not feel smushed. The picnic lunch was very pleasant; the food simple but very good quality and you can have as much wine to drink as you please. The registration form will ask if you have any food allergies so apparently they can adjust for that. In total we tried 15 wines over the course of the day, which was a good number, I would not have wanted to try any more than that. The pours are a good quantity - about 1 ounce so you can get a good sense of the wine. Every place we went to can ship wine to the United States and EU countries (and probably others since they could ship to Switzerland, which is not in the EU). We tasted wines that ranged from 10 euros (which was a favorite for the group) to 175 euros so it was a good variety. Julie provided informative and interesting commentary - about Bordeaux as we departed in the morning, in Saint Emillion, and also in Medoc. This tour was very well put together. Also, if you've spent a lot of time in wineries doing tours and tastings and don't have a pressing need to see the grapes on the vines, I highly recommend going to Bordeaux in the off-season when there are no crowds. The wineries were not busy, Saint Emillion was not crowded with people (nor Bordeaux for that matter), and so we were the focus of attention for our wine tasting hosts and the wine tasting experience was serene. Also, no problems with traffic since there was very little of it. I would highly recommend this tour, especially for someone who is seeking to try as many wines as possible in both appellations within one day in a small group setting. For the price, I thought this was a great value for what we got.

Remi was a great, extremely knowledgeable and personable tour guide that took us through three different tasting experiences and a short tour of St. Emilion. I appreciated the fact that the three tastings were very different, so that we weren't learning the same information over and over. Two were at chateaux and one was at a wine shop in town. I wish the walking tour of St. Emilion were a little bit longer so we could have seen more of the town, but I did like the leisurely pace of the tastings and the chateaux visits. Also, lunch was delicious. And Remi does an amazing job of carrying on a lively conversation while driving. :-)

We liked everything !! I would definitely recommend it . Not only that if they choose other vineyards I will do it again. Guide was a sommelier with extensive knowledge , kindness and humour- Le meilleur parmi les meilleurs !!

The highlight of this 9-hour tour was a stroll in charming village of St. Emilion. We also appreciated the guides’ insightful and delightful narratives.

C'était agréable, nous avons passé un bon moment. La musique était un peu forte au début mais cela s'est arrangé ensuite et nous avons même dansé, c'était très agréable. Pas de difficulté pur la résa ni pendant l'activité. Je recommanderai (quel est le planning ?)