We hit another winery this morning, Château Soutard. It’s a beautiful facility (check out the photos), I just wish I could figure out how to take pictures in a low-light environment that don’t come out incredibly orange. Unfortunately we didn’t love the wine any more than we we did yesterday at Villemaurine, but that’s okay, it’s not like they force you to buy anything.
The big fun happened when we went “downtown” in the village of Saint-Émilion. It’s a YAALMT (yet another adorable little medieval town) and we had a very nice lunch, but then we took a tour of their “monolithic church” which was amazing. In the 11th century, they dug an underground church out of the limestone bedrock, instead of building it on top of the ground like everybody else. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, because all you see are a couple of doors in the side of a cliff. But when you go inside you discover that the sanctuary is 125 feet long, 66 feet wide, 36 feet tall, and supported by giant stone pillars. I wish they had let us take pictures of it. I would say it felt “unearthly” in there, but I guess in a way it’s the most earthy church I’ve ever been in.