The first time I visited Bordeaux, I spent most of my 24 hours there doing what many wine travelers do: sipping Premier Cru wines at famous châteaux on the Left Bank.

Eleven years later, I returned with a different agenda.

This time, I crossed to the Right Bank and ventured beyond the names that dominate Bordeaux wine lists, following a trail through medieval châteaux, family-run estates, historic vineyards, and some of the region's most intriguing wines. It was also a vastly different moment for the wine industry, with younger generations increasingly turning away from alcohol altogether, some seeking wines that are lighter, fresher, and less traditional.

Perhaps that made this return particularly interesting. Bordeaux is a region steeped in centuries of tradition, but it is not standing still.

I arrived in April, when rain seemed determined to follow me everywhere. I began in Bordeaux itself, where I spent much of a rainy day at Cité du Vin, celebrating its 10th anniversary, before heading into wine country.

What I discovered over the days that followed was a Bordeaux that felt more intimate, more experimental and, at times, wonderfully imperfect.

A Castle, a Family, and a Very Good Bottle Under $20

My first stop was Château de Camarsac, a 700-year-old castle in Entre-deux-Mers, the greener, quieter wine region on Bordeaux's Right Bank.

Built in the 14th century with authorization from King Edward II of England, the château has the kind of history that makes the word château feel literal rather than merely a marketing term. The earliest written records mentioning vines here date to the 15th century. The Lurton family purchased the château and vineyard in 1973, and the property rises dramatically from a promontory surrounded by lush countryside.

Thierry Lurton and his family have lived there since 2007, when he purchased the estate from his sister, Bérénice. His wife, Solange, comes from a farming and wine background, and the couple arrived at winemaking by a somewhat unexpected route: both had previously worked in social work and healthcare.

Today, they are balancing those two passions: wine and people, with the château itself.

“Wine is soil and man,” Thierry told me. And, he added, “wine is about pleasure.”

I liked that philosophy almost immediately.

What really caught my attention, though, was what I didn't see in the cellar: barrels.

Thierry has eliminated them. If he wants a little influence from wood, he told me, he simply puts a piece of wood into the stainless-steel vat.

I hadn't encountered that approach since a 2015 visit to the Jura region near Burgundy. The comparison was not especially promising; that wine had been, shall we say, memorable for the wrong reasons.

This one was actually quite good.

Better still, I learned that it sells for less than $20 at Total Wine & More.

Camarsac has embraced accessibility in other ways, too. It became the first Bordeaux wine label to partner with Total Wine & More and even produces its own beer. On the property, Thierry's daughter, Inès Lurton, runs La Bonne Table, a restaurant that draws on the estate's own pigs and poultry, creating a remarkably short farm-to-table chain.

It is Bordeaux wine country, but not the Bordeaux I encountered on my first visit.

And that was becoming the theme.

The Reality Behind the Château

That evening, I arrived in Rions for an overnight at La Bastane, a 19th-century château and wine estate overlooking the Garonne.

Formerly known as Château L'Espinglet, the property has a long winemaking history and was once known for wines so highly regarded that they earned the nickname “Petit Yquem.”

My first impression was pure château grandeur. I loved the elegant entrance and the feeling of history as soon as I walked through the door.

Then I got a glimpse of what château life looks like when no one is preparing it for a glossy magazine photograph.

Because of the rain, Anaïs Bernard led me through the working kitchen so I could reach the wine cellar, which is a route guests don't normally take. The kitchen was bustling and cluttered. The adjoining family room was scattered with children's toys. In the cellar, a Great Pyrenees had made himself entirely at home among the wine.

Then there were the ants.

My guest room had filled with flying ants gathering mostly at the top of the drapes of one window.

Anaïs promptly vacuumed them up, explaining apologetically that she generally prefers to let them “live their lives.”

It was an oddly charming moment.

La Bastane wasn't a château preserved like a museum piece. It was a home, a working winery, a family with two young children, an exceptionally large dog, a foster cat, and an occasional colony of flying ants, all inhabiting the same historic walls.

Anaïs and her husband, Bastien Pestourie, have been building that life since 2017, farming organically and according to biodynamic principles while raising their family and welcoming guests.

The result is beautiful and imperfect at the same time.

And after another day of rain, I found that authenticity far more endearing than perfection.

When the Weather Changes the Plan

The rain followed me for two days, putting an electric-bike excursion through Pessac-Léognan on hold.

I had planned to ride with Arnaud Decroix, of The Bordeaux Wine Route in Graves and Sauternes who arrived with the e-bikes that had really cool barrel-wooden boxes on the back. We planned to explore the vineyards of the region in a much more leisurely fashion. I made the call to instead taste wine indoors.

At Atelier au Château, associated with Château La Louvière, I watched a cellar master stirring lees in a barrel. André Lurton purchased the château in 1965 and spent decades restoring the property from its deteriorated condition.

It was another reminder that Bordeaux is as much about restoring the past as it is about making the future.

The weather improved neither my cycling prospects nor my appetite for wine.

Fortunately, the next stop made up for both.

Haut-Bailly: Bordeaux Gets High-Tech

“Oh la la.”

That was my reaction when I arrived at Château Haut-Bailly.

The cellar, strategically built into the landscape, is an architectural statement. Inside were clay vessels alongside the more traditional tools of Bordeaux winemaking.

This is high-end excellence with a decidedly modern sensibility.

The new cellar was built three years ago and achieved High Environmental Quality certification at the excellence level. In 2025, Haut-Bailly also unveiled the Cellarium, transforming the château's former cellars into a space devoted to hospitality.

I stood at the highest point of the appellation, about 48 meters above sea level, and learned about the estate's long history, which includes phylloxera that devastated European vineyards, and the vines that were replanted here in 1905 using a field blend of noble grape varieties.

Approximately 20% of the blends today come from old vines.

The technology inside the cellar was equally impressive, with computer systems tracking statistics on barrels and bottles.

I tasted a 2019, and for a moment I was transported back to the Bordeaux I remembered from my first visit: classic, structured, and unmistakably Bordeaux.

But the future was sitting right there in the cellar beside it.

Cérons: Where History Still Lives

Then my wine trail carried me south into Graves and toward one of the most memorable stops of the trip: Château de Cérons.

Caroline Perromat greeted me with an enormous apology that initially made me think she might be about to turn me away.

The night before, she and her husband, Xavier, had hosted a party that continued into the wee hours. The only evidence I could detect was the lingering smell of smoke from what had been a bonfire-turned-grill, plus a very tired dog who looked as though he might have been able to tell me exactly what happened.

Inside, however, the château was immaculate.

And empty.

Château de Cérons dates to the end of the 17th century and is one of the early chartreuses of Bordeaux. The French Ministry of Culture identifies the original builders as the Denys family, Bordeaux parliamentarians.

The architecture is quintessentially French: a long, low central residence flanked by two projecting pavilions, with an elaborate central section crowned by an attic decorated with sculptural motifs and urns.

But the heart of the house is the Grand Hall.

The hall runs completely through the building from front to back and retains remarkable decorative details, including Bérain-style stucco ornamentation of flowers, fruit, acanthus leaves and shells. Beneath it is a floor made from stone brought from La Rhune in the Basque Country.

Its proportions have remained unchanged.

And that is where another fascinating chapter of the château's history enters the story.

Roger-Henri Expert, the French architect who won the Prix de Rome in 1912, was connected to the family and spent considerable time at Cérons. His career included work on the interiors of the ocean liner Normandie, the Trocadéro fountains in Paris and villas in Arcachon and Pyla. He eventually oversaw the restoration of the château, including the Grand Hall, and died at Cérons in 1955.

Today, one of the property's rooms is named the Chambre Roger-Henri Expert.

It is an architectural footnote that says a great deal about how deeply the château's history is woven into the place.

So does its location.

Cérons sits directly along the Garonne, and that was once crucial to the wine trade. Wines were loaded onto flat-bottomed boats at the foot of the property and carried toward Bordeaux's Chartrons quays before continuing farther afield.

Wine was not merely produced here.

It moved through here.

Today, Château de Cérons produces three distinct styles: sweet Cérons, Graves red and Graves dry white. The Cérons appellation was established in 1936, alongside the early Bordeaux appellations including Barsac and Sauternes. Beginning with the 2024 vintage, the estate says its wines will be certified organic.

The château itself has been a listed historic monument since August 19, 2008, with its architecture and interiors protected.

Yet what I remember most is not the history lesson.

It is lunch.

On a drizzly, chilly day, I sat in a beautiful room beside a roaring fireplace while a chef served our small group an array of appetizers, lunch, wine pairings, and dessert.

The contrast was perfect.

Outside, the rain.

Inside, warmth, wine, and centuries of French architecture.

The grounds were beautifully maintained, although the white tent out back offered a clue about the previous night's festivities.

This grand historic monument somehow managed to welcome me not as a tourist, but as a guest in someone's home.

And I was in the birthplace of Sémillon, one of my favorite white grapes, particularly when blended with Sauvignon Blanc. The limestone and gravel soils here help give the white wines the structure and longevity to age beautifully.

I didn't want to leave.

But Sauternes was waiting.

The Sweet Side of Bordeaux

Before departing, we stopped in the cellar for a sound-and-light show. I had only enough time for a glimpse, which was frustrating because it deserved a longer look.

But the next stop was worth rushing for.

At Château de Rayne Vigneau, Sébastien Olivar and his American-born assistant welcomed me into the world of Sauternes.

The estate has created something of a playground for oenophiles, offering sensory workshops and its Sweet Escape experiences, along with more adventurous ways to experience the vineyards, including tree-top tastings and horseback tours.

For me, the most fascinating part was underground and in the vineyard.

Sébastien showed me the coiled roots of Sémillon and explained the history of this ancient vineyard. In the 17th century, the property was known as Vigneau de Bommes. By 1855, its wine had been recognized among the top wines of Sauternes, and in 1867 it received a gold medal at the World's Fair in Paris.

This is where Sauternes starts to make sense.

The wine is made primarily from Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle grapes affected by a naturally occurring fungus called Botrytis cinerea, better known as “noble rot.”

The phrase sounds less romantic than the reality.

Noble rot causes the grapes to shrivel like raisins, concentrating their sugars and flavors. The result is the intensely flavored, beautifully balanced sweet wine for which Sauternes is famous.

Its climate makes this possible, but there is a catch: noble rot doesn't cooperate on command.

Harvests can vary dramatically from year to year.

The best Sauternes can be lush and sweet without becoming cloying, with flavors of honey, apricot, citrus and dried fruit. And because the grapes can become so concentrated, producing these wines is labor-intensive and expensive.

At Château de Rayne Vigneau, the experience goes well beyond the bottle. There are falcons and other birds in a taxidermy exhibit, sensory experiences, and ways to explore the vineyards that make the estate feel as much like a destination as a winery.

I tasted the 2016 Sauternes and immediately began thinking about food.

Spicy dishes. Sushi. Pad Thai.

Sweet wine has a reputation for being reserved for dessert.

Sauternes deserve better.

The Bells of Saint-Émilion

My final day was short but sweet and left me wishing I had more time.

A quick train ride brought me to Saint-Émilion, one of Bordeaux's most enchanting wine regions, where medieval stone, steep cobbled lanes and centuries-old vineyards seem to exist in their own perfectly preserved world.

I already knew I would return.

This time, I was headed to Château Angélus.

While some wine estates have a story, Angélus has a sound.

The de Boüard family has been connected to Saint-Émilion since 1782, when Jean de Boüard de Laforest settled in the village. The family eventually acquired the vineyard that would become Angélus, and it has remained in the family for eight generations.

Today, Stéphanie de Boüard-Rivoal, the eighth generation, serves as CEO and owner.

The name Angélus comes from the church bells.

The vineyard sits in a natural amphitheater overlooked by three churches. From here, their bells once converged with unusual clarity, ringing in the morning, at noon and in the evening to call people to prayer.

The sound became so associated with the vineyard that it gave the estate its name.

And the bell became the symbol on the label.

The estate encompasses approximately 30 hectares of vines, planted primarily to Merlot and Cabernet Franc, with a small amount of Petit Verdot.

But the most interesting thing about Angélus today may be the way the estate is reconsidering what Bordeaux wine should be.

When I visited, the main château was off limits because an ambitious new vinification cellar was being unveiled. Instead, I headed to Chai Carillon, where I tasted several wines and learned about the thinking behind this next chapter.

Designed by Bordeaux architect and designer Olivier Chadebost, the new cellar is a two-level, gravity-fed facility designed to move grapes as gently as possible, minimizing pumping and unnecessary handling.

Suspended, inverted cone-shaped vats combine wood, stainless steel, and concrete. A dedicated “cellar within the cellar” is reserved for one of Angélus' rarest wines: Hommage à Élisabeth Bouchet.

The technology is impressive.

But the philosophy is surprisingly simple.

Quality begins in the vineyard.

For decades, Bordeaux's most prestigious wines were associated with power, substantial oak, and long aging.

Angélus is increasingly interested in something more nuanced: precision, balance, freshness, and letting the vineyard speak.

The estate has reduced yields and become increasingly focused on sustainability.

And then there is the oak.

The thinking here is that oak should support the wine, not announce itself.

That philosophy came through in the Carillon wines I tasted.

The 2020 Carillon d'Angélus, 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc, was fresh and approachable, with juicy berry character and a lovely blueberry note. There was tannin, certainly, but it wasn't aggressive. Instead, the wine was fresh and pleasing.

The 2022 offered another expression, with stars decorating the label to celebrate the vintage.

Both wines reinforced something I was beginning to understand about Angélus: its identity is not simply about power. It’s about the relationship between Merlot and Cabernet Franc.

And no discussion of Angélus is complete without Cabernet Franc.

The Cabernet Franc Connection

There are times when Cabernet Franc can smell and taste unmistakably green, such as bell pepper, herbs, even something vegetal.

At Angélus, I was told that this character is generally associated with insufficient ripeness rather than being an inherent flaw in the grape.

When Cabernet Franc reaches full maturity, it can be something else entirely: perfumed, spicy, fresh, structured, and elegant.

Angélus has a particularly personal history with the grape.

In the 1920s, Maurice de Boüard de Laforest planted significant portions of the estate to Cabernet Franc, known locally as “Bouchet,” as a tribute to his wife, Élisabeth Bouchet.

That decision became one of the defining characteristics of Angélus.

The connection continues today in Hommage à Élisabeth Bouchet, a tiny-production wine made from 100% Cabernet Franc and produced only in exceptional vintages.

Named for Stéphanie de Boüard-Rivoal's great-grandmother, it is not a blend.

It is Cabernet Franc in its purest expression, and an homage to both a woman and the grape that helped define her family's legacy.

Beyond the Bottle

The de Boüard family's influence extends beyond the vineyard, including ownership of Le Logis de la Cadène in Saint-Émilion and Le Gabriel in Bordeaux.

Later that afternoon, I met Yves de Launay, Executive Vice President of Angélus Americas, at a restaurant bar in the city.

By then, I felt almost as if I were holding court.

One wine conversation led to another.

And then another.

Yves helped put the Angélus story into a broader context. Angélus, Carillon d'Angélus and Tempo d'Angélus are available in the United States, including in more than 100 New York restaurants.

Still, there is something different about tasting a Bordeaux wine where it was born.

The bells help.

A Different Vision

As if the afternoon couldn't accommodate another wine conversation, my next appointment brought an entirely unique perspective.

Rémy, the winemaker behind Château des Rêves, arrived at the restaurant bar carrying bottles of his wines.

After spending the day with one of Bordeaux's most famous names, I found the contrast refreshing.

Rémy was equally enthusiastic about the vineyard, but his approach was experimental and intimate.

The first wine he poured was L'Éveil, a 100% Merlot made without oak and fermented and aged in large clay vessels that allow the wine to develop without adding the flavors associated with wood.

The grapes come from clay-and-sand soils.

The result was fresh, pure, and expressive. Instead of vanilla, toast, or spice from oak, the Merlot's fruit took center stage.

Only about 7,000 bottles are produced.

At Château des Rêves, approximately 90% of production is managed in concrete vats, another choice that emphasizes the fruit and vineyard rather than the flavor of the vessel.

The château's principal wine takes a more traditional Bordeaux approach: approximately 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon.

The 2022 vintage spent 14 months aging, with about 30% of the barrels being new oak. Clay vessels again played a role, creating an interesting marriage of techniques: oak for structure and texture, concrete for freshness, and clay for a more neutral expression of the fruit.

There was no rejection of Bordeaux tradition; instead, there was a question:

What makes the best wine possible from this particular piece of land?

It is a question being asked more frequently throughout Bordeaux.

Lower yields. More careful vineyard management. Less aggressive extraction. Alternative vessels. Less emphasis on oak.

More freshness. More balance. More drinkability.

After tasting some of Saint-Émilion's most prestigious wines, I found myself equally intrigued by a tiny-production Merlot poured across a restaurant bar by the person who made it.

There is something wonderfully democratic about wine that way.

You can stand in the cellar of a legendary château one moment and discover something completely unexpected in a bottle carried in by a winemaker the next.

What Bordeaux Gave Me

When I first visited Bordeaux, I thought I understood the region.

I tasted its great wines. I had seen the famous châteaux. I had spent my precious 24 hours doing what wine travelers are supposed to do.

But 11 years later, returning, but this time to the Right Bank, and traveling beyond the most famous names, changed my perspective.

I found Bordeaux in the rain at a family château where flying ants were vacuumed from my bedroom.

I found it in a restaurant supplied by pigs and poultry raised on the same property.

I found it in the Grand Hall at Cérons, where centuries of architecture, aristocracy and wine commerce converge.

I found it in the sweet, golden complexity of Sauternes, where a fungus can transform a grape into something extraordinary.

And I found it in the ringing bells of Saint-Émilion, where eight generations of one family have built a wine identity around a sound.

Most of all, I found a Bordeaux that is changing.

The old châteaux are still here. The historic vines are still here. The bells still ring.

But the winemakers are experimenting, questioning, reducing, refining, and looking toward a future that may demand something different from wine.

That is what stays with me from Bordeaux in April. It wasn’t one château, one bottle, or one perfect tasting.

It’s the sense of arriving before the performance begins.

The vineyards were wet. The skies were gray. The cellars were working. Families were living inside centuries-old walls.

And everywhere I went, Bordeaux seemed to be quietly asking the same question:

What comes next?

I don't know the answer yet, but I know I want to go back and find out.

Special thanks to the CIVB, the Bordeaux & Bordeaux Supérieur vintners’ association, the Bordeaux Wine Route in Graves and Sauternes, and Château Angélus for your generosity in helping shape my itinerary for this adventure through Bordeaux’s Right Bank.