Bordeaux wines

1. Bordeaux is big   Bordeaux is almost four times the size of Burgundy and represents 14% of total French wine production. There are 103,200 hectares of vines over 65 different appellations. It is the largest PDO vineyard of France and represents over 1/4 of the AOP vineyard area in France.

Bordeaux, the capital of France’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, is synonymous with world-class wine, stunning architecture, and a rich cultural heritage. While many know it as the home of some of the most prestigious vineyards in the world, there’s much more to this historic city and its surrounding region than meets the eye. Its history is deeply intertwined with royalty, international trade, and even egg yolks! Here are five fascinating facts about Bordeaux that might just surprise you.

  Following on from The Wine Scholar Guild’s excellent October Bordeaux wine tour, our locally based Tour Manager, Sarah, is continuing her series of articles about travel tips to Bordeaux. This third blog looks at some of Bordeaux’s top wine-shops. Unlike many other wine regions in the world, the top Bordeaux Châteaux are often not the best place to purchase their wines: they sell mostly through the Place de Bordeaux’s wine négociants and although the Châteaux do sometimes keep back a small percentage of their wines for over the counter sales, this may not be the best place to find good prices and older vintages. So, for these wines, do look at the following wine shops.

There have been moments in my career as a professional winophile where I’ve realized I haven’t retained a bit of information that perhaps I should have learned in grade school had I been paying attention. Everyone needs a refresher once in a while and this series of blog posts aims to fill in possible gaps of knowledge that your grade-school mind may not have realized you would use in your fabulous wine career. Estuary is a term that surfaces a lot when talking about Bordeaux. Though it is often used interchangeably with the word “river,” estuary has a very specific meaning.