Bordeaux Wine 101: What makes the world’s most famous wine region

Ask a roomful of wine connoisseurs to name the world’s most famous wine region and nine out of ten will likely point you towards Bordeaux. Sure, Burgundy’s ethereal, at times magical Pinot Noir is very much in vogue among purists, but it is Bordeaux that continues to form the pillar of most notable collections. Although we may have moved on from the term ‘claret’ to describe such wines, the savoury blends built on Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot have long been the global benchmark, both on the table and in the cellar.

One of Bordeaux’s great strengths – and one of its complications – is scale. Bordeaux is a vast wine region, spreading out across huge swathes of land in every direction from the vibrant, modern city. Its annual vinous output equates to between a third and a half of Australia’s production, and around four times that of Burgundy. Inevitably, not all of it is cellar-worthy. AC Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur range from mediocre to middling, while the wines of petites châteaux and ‘satellite’ appellations are perfectly serviceable without necessarily outshining equivalent offerings from Chile, South Africa or California. Yet at its Médoc finest, the wines of classified estates from revered appellations achieve something altogether different: a complexity and gravitas that is hard to replicate anywhere else on earth.

This pinnacle is defined by the region’s famous classifications of St-Emillion, Pessac-Léognan and Sauternes, and, perhaps most famously, those of the 1855 classification of the Médoc. Commissioned by Napoleon III for the Paris Exposition Universelle, it ranked the leading estates according to the prices their wines commanded at the time, from first growth down to fifth. Remarkably, that hierarchy has remained almost entirely intact for 170 years. It is, to an extent, a self-fulfilling ranking: the highest graded producers charging more for their wares, reinvesting the profits, and in turn making even better wine as a result. Crucially, Bordeaux’s grandeur is not sealed off by scarcity. Even at this rarefied level – the first growths of Châteaux Lafite, Latour et all – are produced in meaningful quantities (Lafite releases over half a million bottles per year, compared to the mere 75,000 strictly allocated Burgundian darling Domain de la Romanée-Conti), making them visible, tangible symbols of greatness rather than mythical unicorns. 

That accessibility, married to tradition, scale and consistent excellence, is why Bordeaux still matters – and why it remains the most influential wine region on the planet.

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