Wake up to this view of the Pyrenees at Domaine Sergent - Madiran et Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh from their charming and peaceful holiday cottage, 300 metres from the nearest road. Available to rent for 380 euros per week. Sleeps 4. All the details here https://www.domaine-sergent.com/en/le-gite
Value for money like this makes me really wonder why there’s anyone left in Australia at all!
Fantastic Madiran wines from Domaine Sergent proudly imported into Australia by The Other Bordeaux.
All four of these accommodation options are owned by JL Thunevin so, needless to say, the wine-tasting options are many!
Château Valandraud Vins de Saint-Emilion Saint-Emilion Tourisme Château Palais Cardinal Jean Luc Thunevin Union de Producteurs de Saint-Emilion Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux
Thank you to Valentin Pellegrinelli, long-time Ardèche resident and export director for the Vignerons of the Ardèche in Ruoms, for these suggestions.
My late uncle retired to the Ardèche many years ago and thanks to that connection I got to work for a great winery in the area and develop my love for the Ardèche’s wild Mediterranean scenery, extraordinary prehistoric treasures, and hearty local cuisine. My favourite places were Lagorce, Vallon Pont d’Arc, Valvignère, Villeneuve-de-Berg.
Néovinum Vignerons Ardéchois
Hôtel Auberge les Murets
Gorges de l'Ardèche - Pont d'Arc
Lagorce
Luxury holiday accommodation at “Le Logis de Vandraud” is available to book in the heart of legendary Saint-Émilion estate Château Valandraud (Premier Grand Cru Classé). 5 rooms in a beautifully designed manor house, converted from the property’s former winery. Can also be booked out for events for up to 200 people. Valandraud owner Jean-Luc Thunevin is one of France’s most influential winemakers and many of his wines are proudly imported into Australia by The Other Bordeaux. All the details on Le Logis de Valandraud can be found here https://www.logisdevalandraud.com/
Jean Luc Thunevin
page for Château Valandraud is here: https://www.facebook.com/share/1AXwjNAGTc/?mibextid=wwXIfr
04/04/2025
Get chauffeured around Champagne by these 3 cellar door shuttle services: https://www.sparkling-tour.com/fr/accueil/ and https://www.aychampagneexperience.com/ and https://abc-champagne-tour.com/ . There’s also https://www.alafrancaise.fr/en/ who operate tours in other French vineyard regions too like Bordeaux and Burgundy and Provence. All these suggestions courtesy of Champagne V***e Maitre Geoffroy , as seen in this photo of the family winemaking team in their vines above the beautiful village of Cumières, and proudly imported by The Other Bordeaux . V***e Maître Geoffroy receive many cellar door visitors courtesy of the above shuttle services, in fact it was one of their Australian visitors who alerted me to this producer that I would never otherwise have found out about.
ABC Champagne Tour
Sparkling Tour en Champagne
A la Française
Also imported by The Other Bordeaux:
Champagne Yves Louvet
Champagne Testulat
Our new Burgundy supplier Domaine Desertaux-Ferrand has two beautiful houses to rent halfway between Beaune and Nuits-Saint-Georges in the commune of Corgoloin for very reasonable prices. You’ll find all the details on their website here https://desertaux-ferrand.com/gites
Could be perfect for your next French holiday.
01/04/2025
“I try not to be pretentious about wine… but if you wannabe I can help you do that also!” I do love this ad and am a fan of James Suckling’s work as a wine critic. I am not promoting these MasterClasses because I have never done one and know nothing about what they entail. I do like the ad though!
15/03/2025
I think it was the Bordeaux novelist François Mauriac who said that wine shines with the burning summers of the past and that was definitely an idea I could see in my own glass yesterday evening. Cheers to the last taste of summer 2024-25!
14/03/2025
Here’s another fabulously innocuous looking shopfront that harbours a spectacular dining experience within. It’s Lard et Bouchon in Saint-Émilion and because the actual restaurant is downstairs and effectively in the cellar there’s nothing to see at ground level and the entrance could easily be mistaken for some sort of wholesale butchery business or a launderette or god knows what recently entered into administration! But the reality couldn’t be further from that: This is a fabulous little restaurant, built in ancient stone, hewn from the local limestone rock, and thus cosy in winter or cool in summer, crackling with conversation and busy at lunch or dinner, delectable food beautifully presented, and led by an owner/maïtre d who owns the show and delights in playing blind wine tasting games for anyone who wants to explore his wine specials by the glass. The wine list is also profoundly good and reasonably priced if you want a bottle. I had never even noticed Lard et Bouchon in my first 25 years of visiting Saint-Émilion. Oh well, better late than never! Interior photo in the comments but don’t ever expect to see it empty on a normal day…
06/03/2025
Doesn’t look like much, right?! You’ll just have to trust me that this is one of those culinary gems you can only find in France, in Épernay as it happens, the capital of Champagne. On the outside it looks like nothing but on the winter’s day in 2024 when I went in there it was absolutely pumping, packed to the gunnels with locals ordering plat du jour off the blackboard, which was beef cheek and a turnip purée that particularly wintry day, all washed down with an excellent selection of wines from the surrounding hillsides. In classic French fashion, they don’t have a website though you’ll find them on Facebook if you search for “chez camille Épernay”. And they’re physically at 27 Av. Alfred Anatole Thévenet, 51530 Magenta, France. It’s a few minutes from the Épernay railway station. It used to be called Café de la Mairie but everyone knows it as Chez Camille as that’s the name of the chef running the joint these days. It’s a touch chaotic but that’s OK when you’re the most popular bistro in town. The atmosphere is authentic and piping hot, as is the food. Highly recommended.
27/02/2025
The vineyards of in the wild Cathar country of the southern Corbières hills (“Côtes du Roussillon” for the wine lovers). I had the pleasure to work for another estate in this area in 2006 and it’s special to me to continue the relationship with the awesome wines made in collaboration between and Bordeaux legend . Merci pour cette belle photo.
26/02/2025
Great to see Notre Dame open again - but we didn’t have time to take on the 500 metre queue to get in! Photo taken Feb 8th.
24/02/2025
Thank you to TOB customer .donna for this beautiful shot of Rocamadour deep in the heart of “ La France Profonde.”
There’s a $50 French wine voucher for every image published. If you have any of your own pictures of France you’d like to submit for publication on The Other Bordeaux’s social media accounts with acknowledgement of your authorship, please email them to me or send me a message. Photos in portrait orientation work best. Please note that The Other Bordeaux can only sell and send you wine if you are in Australia.
21/02/2025
Beautiful stillness on the river Vienne (a tributary of the Loire) at Chinon by The Other Bordeaux customer .quinn.378
There’s a $50 French wine voucher for every image published. If you have any of your own pictures of France you’d like to submit for publication on The Other Bordeaux’s social media account with credit to your authorship, please email them to me or send me a message. Photos in portrait orientation work best.
21/02/2025
A bit over 13 years ago I was living and working with friends . Plenty of snow that winter and great light too, heading off to the vines at dawn, shadows of the great cedars on the wall of the castle. Feels like yesterday. I wouldn’t (still) be working with wine if it wasn’t for Roquetaillade. My first vintage with them was 1998…
20/02/2025
May Day! May Day! Well, May 1st 2023 to be exact. Strolling in the fresh evening light in Saint-Émilion.
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My name’s Tom Munro and after 20 years working for vineyards and wineries in Australia and France, I now import French wine straight to your door: Freight-Free, Australia-wide. Click here if you would like to receive my newsletter and find out about future shipments: http://eepurl.com/dpguK5
But this wine importing business is built on 20+ years of making wine in France and Australia.
And I actually started making wine as an 8-year-old growing up in England, collecting grapes from people who had vines growing in glasshouses although I also had a couple of very hardy vines that I grew myself in a market garden near home in London.
That was back in 1985. Later, I graduated to selling my better wines on the boarding school black market as I progressed through an education dominated by my love of science.
When I left school I worked as a journalist in the areas of wine, politics, and crime, but then discovered that I had family connections to a winery in Bordeaux called Châteaufort de Roquetaillade where I began my professional winemaking apprenticeship in 1998.
Between 1998 and 2018 I worked for many different wineries and vineyards in France (Bordeaux, Burgundy, Roussillon, and the Loire) and Australia (the Adelaide Hills, Rylstone NSW, and Tasmania) and then started off The Other Bordeaux by importing the wines of Châteaufort de Roquetaillade. Between 2002 and 2005 I took time off to study winemaking at The University of Adelaide where I finished with a Graduate Diploma in Oenology (Wine science) .
I then began importing the wines of other progressive, family-owned artisan wineries that I came across in the course of my work in France.
I import French wine to your door, freight-free, Australia-wide. Learn more: 
