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Image:Bouteilles Bordeaux.jpg Bordeaux wine, refers to all wine, red or white, produced in the Bordeaux region of France.

Contents 1 Region 2 Grapes 3 Classification 4 History 5 See also 6 External links 7 Source 8 Footnotes

[edit] Region

Bordeaux is the second largest wine region in the world with over 284,320 acres under vine, 57 appellations, 9,000 wine-producing châteaux, and 13,000 grape growers (The largest being the Languedoc wine region with 617,750 acres under vine <ref>Jancis Robinson, "Oxford Companion to Wine", Second Edition pg 397. Oxford University Press 1999</ref>.)

With an annual production of over 700 million bottles, Bordeaux produces large quantities of everyday wine as well as expensive wines. Although the reputation of Bordeaux is based on its few prestigious red wines and the sweet white wines from Sauternes, Bordeaux also produces large quantities of ordinary table wines, including white wines, rosé wines, and a sparkling wine, called Crémant de Bordeaux.

The Bordeaux region has an excellent environment for growing vines. The ecological foundation of the region is limestone, meaning that the soil is full of calcium, and the natural paths of the Garonne and the Dordogne irrigate the land. Combined with the oceanic climate, giving humidity to the atmosphere, this creates a desirable environment for grapes to flourish.

[edit] Grapes

Red Bordeaux, which is traditionally known as claret in the United Kingdom, is generally made from a blend of grapes. Permitted grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and Carmenere although the Malbec is very seldom used and Carmenere is now virtually absent in Bordeaux. White Bordeaux is made from Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, and Muscadelle.

[edit] Classification

The Bordeaux wine region is divided into subregions including Saint-Émilion, Pomerol, Médoc, and Graves. In 1855, a classification system, known as The Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, ranked the wines into five categories according to price. The first growth red wines (four from Médoc and one, Château Haut-Brion, from Graves), are among the most expensive wines in the world, although in wine competitions they tend to be beaten by less expensive wines from various countries in blind taste tests. See, for example, the St. Catharines Wine Tasting of 2005, the Berlin Wine Tasting of 2004 and The Wine Rematch of the Century.

The first growths are:

• Château Lafite-Rothschild
• Château Margaux
• Château Latour
• Château Haut-Brion
• Château Mouton-Rothschild

In 1955, St. Émilion AOC were classified, adding an additional two Premier Crus (Class A):

• Château Ausone
• Château Cheval Blanc

Pomerol has never been officially classified, but its best estates, such Château Pétrus and Château Le Pin, fetch very high prices that often exceed even the prices of the first growths.

Sauternes is a subregion of Graves known for its intensely sweet, white, dessert wines such as Château d'Yquem. The intense sweetness is the result of the grapes being affected by Botrytis cinerea, a fungus that is commonly known as noble rot.

Many critics, including Robert M. Parker, Jr., believe that the 1855 classification is out of date and that a reclassification would be in the interests of consumers. Apart from being out of date, the 1855 classification was based entirely on wine prices. Since 1855, châteaux have bought and sold vineyards; prestigious winemakers have died; and many other important changes have occurred. In 1961, the French government decided to review the classification and delete 17 châteaux. In the end, the proposed reclassification never happened because the government finally yielded to political pressure applied by owners of the affected châteaux, who feared that a demotion would mean that they would need to reduce their prices. Certainly, there are some wines that are not as good as their classification would lead the average consumer to believe, and there are many producers that make excellent wine despite little or no recognition according to the 1855 classification. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that all the first growths are among the finest wines available.

[edit] History

Wine production seems to have begun sometime after 48 AD, during the Roman occupation of St. Émilion, when the Romans established vineyards to cultivate wine for the soldiers. <ref>Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine pg 50. Simon and Schuster 1989 </ref> However, it is only in 71 AD that Pliny recorded the first real evidence of vineyards in Bordeaux.<ref>Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine pg 50. Simon and Schuster 1989 </ref> France's first extensive vineyards were established by Rome in around 122 BC in today's Languedoc, the better part of two hundred years earlier. <ref> Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine pg 48. Simon and Schuster 1989</ref>

Although domestically popular, French wine was seldom exported, as the areas covered by vineyards and the volume of wine produced was low. In the 12th century however, the popularity of Bordeaux wines increased dramatically, following the marriage of Henry Plantagenet and Aliénor d’Aquitaine.

As the popularity of Bordeaux wine increased, the vineyards expanded to accommodate the demands from abroad. Being the land tax beneficiary, Henry II was in favour of this industry, and to increase it further, abolished export taxes to England from the Aquitaine region. In the 13th and 14th century, a code of business practices called the police des vins emerged to give Bordeaux wine a distinct trade advantage over its neighbouring regions. <ref> Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine pg 149. Simon and Schuster 1989 </ref>

In 1725, the spread of vineyards throughout Bordeaux was so vast that it was divided into specific areas so that the consumer could tell exactly where each wine was from. The collection of districts was known as the Vignoble de Bordeaux, and bottles were labelled with both the region and the area from which they originated.

Due to the lucrative nature of this business, other areas in France began growing their own wines and labelling them as Bordeaux products. As profits in the Aquitaine region declined, the viticulteurs demanded that the government impose a law declaring that only produce from Bordeaux could be labelled with that name.

In 1936, the government responded to the appeals from the winemakers and stated that all regions in France had to name their wines by the place in which they had been produced. Labelled with the AOC approved stamp, products were officially confirmed to be from the region that it stated. This law later extended to other goods such as cheese, poultry and vegetables.

[edit] See also

• Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855
• Comité Régional d'Action Viticole Radical terrorist group of growers.
• French Culinary Institute Wine Tasting of 1986 Ten year anniversary follow-up of Paris wine competition.
• French wine
• Garagistes
• Globalization of wine
• Problems in the French Wine Industry
• Jacques Hemmer
• Paris Wine Tasting of 1976
• Thierry Boudinaud
• Vineyard
• Wine competitions
• Wine fraud
• Henri Cruse

[edit] External links

• Official Bordeaux Wine website (CIVB)
• Bordeaux Wine
• "The Judgment of Paris: What the French didn't learn from the legendary wine-tasting."
• Wine war: Savy New World marketers are devastating the French wine industry
• Bordeaux Wine Everything you need to know about Bordeaux Wine

[edit] Source

• Echikson, William. Noble Rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution. NY: Norton, 2004.
• EU Attacking French AOC System. Chez Mistral [1]
• Teichgraeber. Bordeaux for less dough. San Francisco chronicle, June 8, 2006 [2]

[edit] Footnotes

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br:Gwiniegi Bourdel da:Bordeaux (vindistrikt) de:Bordeaux (Weinbaugebiet) es:Vinos de Burdeos fr:Vignoble de Bordeaux ko:보르도 포도주 it:Bordeaux (vino) lb:Bordeaux (Wäibauregioun) nl:Bordeaux (wijnstreek) ja:ボルドーワイン sv:Bordeauxviner uk:Бордо (вино)