Bordeaux with its harmony of history and terroir  has come to exemplify the majesty of fine wine.

In the World of Wine, Bordeaux is one of the  most recognized and treasured.

Collectors are happy to pay hundreds of dollars a bottle for  top wines, like Château Margaux, to get them into their collection.

But what's often overlooked  with all the fame and glory these wines attain

is that they really only represent five  percent of the total Bordeaux Market.

Bordeaux produces a wide range of wines,  to put things into perspective, there's as  

much wine produced in the Region of Bordeaux  as in many entire New World Wine countries.

The region has over 13000 growers, 9000  Châteaus, and 57 different Appellations.  

In this episode we're going to travel through  Bordeaux and discover all that it has to offer.

The 18th century city of Bordeaux is a thriving  Metropolis at the heart of the Bordeaux Region,  

built on trade the city is France's Southwest  Port with commercial links across the globe.

The city is an undiscovered pleasure of  French culture and charm, although sometimes  

overshadowed in terms of tourism, the slower  pace contributes to the bordelaise ability  

to appreciate food and fine wine. Even today  Bordeaux remains the capital of the Wine World.

The Garonne River, the region's main thoroughfare,  flows in and out with the rising tide

making the city built on its shores a natural port.

By the 17th century, merchants of various nationalities began establishing firms on the bank of the Garonne  

to act as négociants, or agents between the wine  producers of Bordeaux and the world marketplace.  

So that today the people at large celebrate  the pride of Bordeaux.

"The core reason why people are interested in what we are doing is  just because it's terribly good to drink, so it's  

it's a great wine, gives a pleasure. You look  at it, you smell, you swallow and you feel better"  

"I think when you think about wine, European wine,  the first thing you think about is Bordeaux.  

Bordeaux is the center of the Wine World".

Bordeaux's prominence, as a Wine Region today,  can be traced back to one famous document.

In 1855 Emperor Napoleon III wanted to showcase  the finest wines of the country at the Paris exposition,

so he challenged recognized brokers of the day and had them develop a list, ranking the Châteaus of Bordeaux.

And this is the list. It's known as the Official Classification of 1855.

Many of the great names then  are great names now.

Latour

Margaux

Lafite

Haut-Brion

Rothschild

Here was the origin of the concept of  fine wine. Wine sold by the bottle with a sense of place and history included.

Other classifications followed and expanded throughout Bordeaux.

"Bordeaux is certainly not just expensive wines,  however those expensive wines are the symbol of  

Bordeaux and, as the French would say, the locomotif. They're what drive the industry here"  

But we're here to discover and demystify  the broad elements of all Bordeaux wine.

The center of the Wine World became such because  it produces wines for every lifestyle and every  

budget, even today the styles of Bordeaux  wines have and are evolving, do as much to  

the competition from the new world producers as  to the differing taste of an expanding marketplace.  

With thousands of Châteaus producing  wines, each distinct to its terroir,  

the vast array is perhaps the most dizzying aspect  of the industry. How do we make sense of it all?

Well, the first step is geographic.

Bordeaux, with 100 000 hectares under vine, is France's largest quality wine region located on the Southwest Coast.

The main waterway is the Gironde estuary

with its two tributaries, the Dordogne and the Garonne, which served to divide the region into three distinct zones:

the Left Bank, Entre-Deux-Mers and the Right Bank.

Each and every bottle of Bordeaux is made under the Appellation d'origine contrôlée or AOC regulations.

The label indicates geographically where the grapes  have been harvested and, in the case of a Château,  

where the wine was made. All of which contribute  to the concept of what the French call 'terroir'. 

"The whole ethos of Bordeaux is based on terroir.  Terroir means not only the ground in which  

the grapes are grown but also the atmosphere, the  weather around and drainage, it takes into account  

all kinds of aspects about how that grape was grown".

"The main thing to remember about Bordeaux wines, both red and white,

is that they are a blend and that thereafter, they are a blend of really principally three red grape varieties,

Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc,

in various combinations depending on where you are  in Bordeaux. And Sémillon and Sauvignon for the white".

The most readily affordable wines of Bordeaux come  from grapes harvested from all areas of the region,  

this is usually the product of a négociant, who is  involved in the entire wine making process, from  

the purchase of the grapes, to the final blending  and aging of the finished wines.

"Making a blend is just trying to bring to the consumer the most  complex and harmonious wine you can you can make" 

Paz Espejo is a winemaker for the  Négociant Calvet, in business since 1818.  

In response to increasing competition from New  World Wines, Calvet like others in Bordeaux, has been revitalizing itself.

"I don't think we have to copy,

because the interest people have always had in Bordeaux is because  there was a special personality. I think we don't have to lose this personality

because we will never make the same kind of wines at the New World, we're not in Australia, we're not in Chile, we are in Bordeaux

and we have to understand what Bordeaux is and try to improve the quality as much as we can". 

The basic grape varieties used for the blending  of Bordeaux red wines are Cabernet Sauvignon and  

Merlot with Cabernet Franc and, to a lesser extent,  Malbec and Petit Verdot, to round off particular styles.

"Cabernet Sauvignon brings acidity, tannins,  so structure, spiciness, aging capacity.

Merlot, for example, brings fruitiness, the floral side, the violet, the rose petal.

So both seems to be, logically, a good complement, a good balance. And Cabernet Franc brings more or less between both,

it is spicy but at the same time it brings acidity.  So it is fresh and brings aging capacity too".

"The winemaker can actually adjust the quantities  of these different grapes in different years.  

So if one year the Merlot doesn't  ripen as well as the Cabernet Sauvignon,  

he'll put more Cabernet Sauvignon in, so it's really a winemaker's wine"

"What I want is,

Vintage after Vintage, to bring to the consumer  the best expression, the most beautiful wine"

The next step up, in terms of quality,  is what is known as Bordeaux Supérieur.

Yvon Mau is another large-scale Négociant  Firm, shipping over four million cases a year.

Founded in 1897, Yvon Mau owns or represents  a number of Bordeaux's smaller producers, among  

them Château Ducla, a generic Bordeaux that has  recently been elevated to Bordeaux Supérieur status.  

"The main difference between Bordeaux and  Bordeaux Supérieur it's more consistency of quality".  

"The three principle differences are  that the Supérieur has to have half a  

degree potential alcohol more, it has to have  a slightly lower yield and it has to be aged  

for slightly longer in barrel, therefore intimating  that it is a slightly more structured wine".  

"We're not so fond of grapes and we think that  the terroir is much more important than the grapes,  

to give you an example and to be more precise,  we think that the Cabernet produced in  

Médoc would be very different from the  Cabernet in California, just nothing like".

One of the finest qualities of  Bordeaux lies in the balance.

"It cannot be too much something, it could not be too much  alcohol, too much tanning, too much acidity.  

The art of Bordeaux, the mystery  of Bordeaux is to be a good balance  

and this balance must be, normally, with the food".

This is the Médoc, a place the French refer  to as the 'Promised Land of Cabernet Sauvignon'.  

'la Rive Gauche' or the Left Bank is comprised  of the Médoc along with Graves and Sauternes

and it's here that we'll begin our journey  through the Appellations of Bordeaux.

October, the culmination of a  year's hard work in the vineyards,  

the harvest traditions remain strong here with  many of the same people returning year after year.

Timing the harvest is critical to obtain the  optimal balance of sugars and acids in the fruit  

and ultimately, to express  the character of the vineyard.  

The soils in the district are quite poor  for growing anything other than grapes  

but the rocky and gravelly soils retains  heat and drains easily, which makes it ideal for the late ripening Cabernet.

"The Médoc is Cabernet Sauvignon dominant, that's the grape and Cabernet Sauvignon is a very small berry

and a small berry means a large surface of skin and therefore, the wines are quite tannic.

These wines tend to be more austere, they need to longer aging

than on the Right Bank, where it's Merlot dominant".

In their youth many of the red wines of Bordeaux,

although approachable, can be tight and  complex. Over time these characteristics  

give way to leather tones, tobacco and  dried fruit. Now the Vintage of a wine  

also contributes to its ageability. All wines, even  wines from extraordinary Vintages, eventually peak and later decline.

The finest Vintages can be aged  for up to a hundred years in the right conditions, all the while appreciating in  its subtle and complex qualities.  

How far back do the wines go in here? "Oh.. 1881"

An interesting cellar within the Region lies at Château Batailley in the commune of Pauillac.

These bottles are a testament to the Region's history

and each year the Château will add four to  six thousand bottles for future generations.  

This is quite the collection.

"This is the library, this is the memory of Batailley. 1982..."

Philippe Castéja is the Château owner and serves as chairman of the Médoc Classified Growth's Organization.

What a library. "Oh yeah"

That gives a new definition to libraries. "Yeah.. exactly

Every vintage in Bordeaux is different, and  this climate, this adverse climate sometimes, has  

made our consumers to be searching  this Vintage or that Vintage because  

they want a wine which is going to be  to be drunk younger or a little older" 

So this is something that's going to last"  "Yeah, it's going to last for a century or so  

and but I'm sure that in 20, 25 years, it's going  to be excellent. Why don't we make an appointment?"  

Okay. I'm going to get my calendar, I'm  going to put that in.

"Okay, sold" Absolutely

The Médoc offers all sorts of quality wines  including mid-level priced wine, called Cru Bourgeois.

One of these is Château du Taillan, whose traditional approach is mitigated by some unique factors in its ownership.

"We are five girls owning the Château at the moment and we are very fond of this Château.

And we really want to go far with this Cru Bourgeois and to do the best we can for this wonderful Château.

So here we are in the old cellar from the 16th century.."

The Château itself was built in the 18th century and has  been in the Cruse Family for over 100 years.

Today even the barrel cellars, or Chai, are classified as historical monuments.

"The tradition is very important, especially in the Château du Taillan, as this Château belongs to a very  

old family, the Cruse Family, my family and so we  try to keep this tradition but to modernize slowly  

this tradition in order to keep the authenticity to the wine".

Cru Bourgeois producers have become very sensitive to the success of New World Wine.

"The market has changed since five years in the Cru Bourgeois.

We know that nowadays many people produce wine in the world and the only secret for us, in Bordeaux, in the Cru Bourgeois, in the Médoc,

is to produce quality wine".

Traveling a little further South we come  to the heartland of the Bordeaux Region.  

Graves

Graves is the French word for gravel  

and the best Châteaus here are located on  distinctive gravel outcrops, called 'croupes'.

Unlike most other areas of Bordeaux, Graves  produces both red and white wines.

This is Château La Louvière, owned by André Lurton, one  of the most influential producers in the Region.

He has been a potent force in the  development and promotion of the Graves Region.  

"Wine can be made well anywhere in the  world with sunshine and good soil,  

what differs are the overall  characteristics of the terroir  

and we have our own special characteristics,  which comes from our soil but also from our blends"

The Graves Region has a reputation for producing  the highest quality dry white wines of Bordeaux.  

White wine production here combines the  traditional methods with modern techniques,  

the white wines of the Region use both Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.