Château Bardins is a place as if in a fairy tale, with 10 hectares of vineyards in a green setting carefully cultivated by Stella Puel, a lover of nature with a passion for culture and encounters. With her passion the idea was born to create wine tasting courses!
I received my first emotions about odours in my childhood in the wine cellars of Armagnac where my grandmother used to ask me to climb up the ladder and get a litre of brandy to flavour the crêpes. These so delicious fragrances from this « oh so sacred » for the entire family, remains engraved in my memory. Now this memory is an essential tool enabling us to make progress in the vast field of tasting.
Later during my studies, I was fortunate enough to have an excellent tasting teacher who helped me to find and relate to different smells. Since then, this practice has become a part of me. We all have the ability to taste within us: You must simply make yourself available to taste wines or other products, pay attention and listen to what you are feeling and just be curious.
I don’t believe in good taste but rather a personal taste. We are all very different and that is what makes taste more interesting! I focus on trying to identify what kind of wine I like and why I like it and only then do I dissect it. The strength of the group in these kind of studies is an undeniable fact. You will only be enriched when you realize that you can’t express yourself. Together we can make faster progress in the complex process of finding your own personal taste.
I do not want to be a lable drinker and find a wine good just because it has a certain notoriety. Tasting is a difficult art not only because wine is alive and evolves over time but also because of many external factors affecting our own personal perception (the current situation, the atmosphere and the circumstances of the tasting, the glass, the temperature…). It seems like a certain dose of humanity is needed as well.
The accumulation of taste experiences forms the taster… We have never stopped learning and therein lies the pleasure.
Pascale Larroche – Les ateliers de Bardins