St. Emilion

St. Emilion

St.Emilion is a medieval village from the 12th century. Here instead of having a wall around the city, the back of the buildings formed part of the defensive wall. We started our visit at St. Emilion church where we could see the damage caused during the French revolution. Remember that at this time, the people defaced many of the properties of the noblemen and the church, cutting off the heads of the statues. This church still had the Roman style domes in the center of the church and then Gothic style pillars and supports on either side. Attached on one side was the Augustine cloister. Here there was a map of the St. Emilion jurisdiction with every chateau marked on it, 800 wineries on 15000 acres. Natalie, our guide pointed to the chateau run by her husband's sister and the one run by her husband.

"Here is my husband's chateau"

One of the more interesting sights is the underground monolithic church. The church was quarried out in the 12th century over 30-50 years, its 8 meters wide, 12 meters long and 12 meters high. The 15000 cubic meters of rock quarried out was used to build the houses around the village. On top is a 4000 ton tower, which is causing problems because of the weight being held up by the limestone columns.

Monolithic Church

We, of course, had to sample wine, this time from Chateau Cardinal Villemarie, a Grand Cru Classe winery. Here the wine cellar was the first that was truly a cellar, carved out of the stone beneath the building. While they had wine from 1930, their advice was to drink the best wines within 60 years.