Château L’Évangile
Standing on the steps of Château Cheval Blanc, on the occasion of my first ever visit to the château, I surveyed the expanse of vines that lay before me with a sense of wonder. I felt like an explorer, discovering new lands for the first time, and as a consequence my mind wandered, as I tried to relate my feelings to those of mankind’s early adventurers, the discoverers of the New World. In my mind I likened my experience to that enjoyed by the first European explorers as, more than five centuries ago, they set foot on the soils of the Americas for the first time. Alright, I know I hadn’t really ‘discovered’ this landscape, and that thousands if not millions of people had gazed with wonderment at this very scene long before I had ever arrived here. And I also know that there was no chance of me discovering my fortune here; there was no city of gold waiting for me, just beyond the horizon. What lay before me would never be mine, by any means.
Looking on the bright side though, neither will history regard me as a pillaging conquistador, killing millions with the deadly combination of measles, influenza and the sword, joyfully massacring the local population in order to take their land and gold. So, visits to Château Cheval Blanc ain’t all bad, I guess.
