A Town of Rare Vintage

In Saint-Emilion, You Don't Need to Be an Oenophile to Appreciate France's Best

Finding a mattress in Saint-Emilion, France, would not be easy. The world's largest wine convention was about to descend on the city of Bordeaux and vacant rooms in the legendary wine-growing village about 25 miles to the northeast seemed almost as rare as Cheval Blanc '47.

Then I got lucky with a telephone lead. One bed-and-breakfast owner -- who had no vacancy herself for my upcoming soak-up-the-wine-food-and-ambiance getaway, said she had a neighbor who might have a free room just outside the Saint-Emilion vineyards.

"Are you very big, monsieur?" Madame asked politely in French.

"Pardon?" I asked.

She explained that her neighbor was "perfectly charming," but there was one slight problem: The beds at his place were . . . on the small side.

"Well," she concluded after I explained in metric terms that I was more than 5 feet 10, "you could always sleep on a diagonal . . . " I called and booked.

It was only a week later, as I drove toward my room at Chateau de Lescaneaut, that I began having second thoughts. What had I gotten myself into: a hobbit hotel? A closet under the stairs?

As it turned out, the place was everything I like in a country inn -- despite the tub-only hand showers, towels like sandpaper and plumbing that brayed like an overwrought donkey. Chateau de Lescaneaut is a 300-year-old farmhouse surrounded by vineyards, with a country bourgeois decor that's remained unchanged for generations. There were wood floors, poster beds (my feet barely hung over the end), a stately dining room where generous breakfasts were served in the company of large ancestral oil portraits, and a witty, world-weary proprietor named Francois Faytout Garamond.

"That's just where I like my family -- on the walls," Garamond quipped in French about the portraits during my introductory tour.

As I headed out to Saint-Emilion that first evening, Francois warned me about Saint-Emilion and how it had changed.

"It's Marrakech!" he hyperbolized with a mischievous grin. Then he bade me good evening and warned me about the locals: "Be careful on the road, people around here like to drink a lot."

I drove the narrow winding roads pointing up to the medieval village. In a small country hamlet, I had to slow down for what would become a familiar sight throughout the area that week -- an elderly, half-dressed man standing in the road, staring mystified at the occasional car that passed him by.