When we planned the trip, my friends and I already expected that our visit to Saint Emilion must be not enjoyable because visiting in March, there is almost nothing in the vineyards, and because two of our group don’t drink alcohol, and one has to be a driver, so visiting chateaux for wine testing for just one person in the group seem to be pointless. Anyway, we still kept Saint Emilion in our plan expecting good weather and great view from this medieval town; however, when we arrived the town, there was shower, and it was really cold. We decided to look around the town which was quite prosperous and lovely but really quiet as all the shops were closed and no one came out in such bad weather. My friends also angrily cursed the expensive parking fee so that we decided to park our car outside the town.

We roamed around the wet and quiet town, luckily that the town was great. Many buildings were beautiful, and many small alleys were really pretty with flower and ivy. We saw the famous Monolithic Church, which was interesting and the Tour du Roy, an old tower, a really nice place for photograph where we could get a perfect view of the whole town. We went to a recommended spot to see the view of countless tiled roof which was really nice indeed. During our visit the only shop that still opened were the wine shops. When we looked inside, to our surprised most of customers were Chinese which made us understood why many shops had small Chinese flags and accepted Chinese credit card. Not only Chinese we also saw transaction services for Japanese and Korean. Seem to me that Asian market has become an important customer for Saint Emilion wine. Since we could not drink wine or had a large meal as we wanted to have dinner in Bordeaux, we turn to another Saint Emilion’s specialty, the macaron. The macaron of Nadia Fermigier which claimed to be the original recipe was quite lovely to see as its packaging is quite interesting and the taste was really nice which they claimed go perfectly with Bordeaux wine. We even found out that its canelé was also amazing and far better than many famous bakeries in Bordeaux.

The worsen heavy rain made us decided to go back to our car, so we only spent 2 hours in this towns. Since we did not expect anything from the visit, we were quite OK with Saint Emilion. The old town was nice but nothing special compared with other similar old towns in this region. Its viticulture was fine and its effect on economic was easily visible; however, since Saint Emilion AOC was one of the most expensive, I expected some fancy shops liked in Champagne cellars in Reims or Epernay, but everything seems to be a bit plain. Its outstanding value seem to be the odd “jurisdiction” which I don’t think it is an easy reason to comprehend. But since Saint Emilion is one of earliest World Heritage Sites that based on viticulture, its jurisdiction reason seems to make Saint Emilion easier to distinguish itself from other listed vineyards.