Bordeaux and the Wine Country

If you're looking for the good life, your search may be ended. Few other regions of France pack such a concentration of fine wine, extraordinary spirits, and gustatory delights ranging from exquisite cuisine to the most rib-sticking of country cooking. The countryside will enchant you without your quite knowing why: what the French call la douceur de vivre (the sweetness of living) may have something to do with it. To the east, extending their lush green rows to the rising sun, the fabled vineyards of the Route de Médoc entice visitors to discover such enchanting medieval wine towns as St-Émilion. To the north, the Atlantic coast offers elite enclaves of white-sand beach. In between is the metropolis of Bordeaux, replete with 18th-century landmarks and 20-year-old college students. Some complain that Bordeaux is like Paris without the good stuff. If you're a wine lover, however, it's still the doorway to paradise.

The history, economy, and culture of Bordeaux have always been linked to the production and marketing of wine. The birth of the first Bordeaux winery is said to have occurred between AD 37 and 68, when the Romans called this land Burdigala. By the Middle Ages a steady flow of Bordeaux wines was headed to England, where it's still dubbed "claret," after clairet, a light red version from earlier days. During these centuries the region was also put on the tourist radar because it had become a major stopping-off point on the fabled Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage road. "Souvenirs" from that era are Bordeaux's Cathedral St-André and the basilicas of St. Seurin (where by legend Charlemagne laid down Roland's ivory horn after the defeat of Ronceveaux) and St. Michel—all so important they have been listed as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

With all these allurements, it's no wonder the English fought for it so determinedly throughout the Hundred Years' War. This coveted corner of France became home to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and when she left her first husband, France's Louis VII, to marry Henry II of Normandy (later king of England), both she and the land came under English rule. Henry Plantagenet was, after all, a great-grandson of William the Conqueror, and the Franco-English ambiguity of the age exploded in a war that defined much of modern France and changed its face forever. Southwestern France was the stage upon which much of the war was conducted—hence the region's many castles and no end of sturdy churches dedicated to the noble families' cause.

What they sought, the world still seeks. The wines of Bordeaux set the standard against which other wines are measured, especially the burgeoning worldwide parade of Cabernets. From the grandest premiers grands crus—the Lafite-Rothschilds, the Margaux—to the modest supérieur in your picnic basket, the rigorously controlled Bordeaux commands respect. Fans and oenophiles come from around the world to pay homage; to gaze at the noble symmetries of estate châteaux, whose rows of green-and-black vineyards radiate in every direction; to lower a nose deep into a well-swirled glass to inhale the heady vapors of oak and almond and leather; and, finally, to reverently pack a few bloodline labels into a trunk or a suitcase for home.

The rest you will drink on-site, from the mouthful of golden Graves that eases the oysters down to the syrupy sip of Sauternes that civilizes the smooth gaminess of the foie gras to the last glass of Médoc paired with the salt-marsh lamb that leads to pulling the cork on a Pauillac—because there is, still to come, the cheese tray.. With a smorgasbord of 57 wine appellations (areas) to choose from, a spanking new Bordeaux—courtesy of France's former prime minister, Alain Juppé, who became mayor of the city—and the wine country that surrounds it with a veritable army of varietals, the entire region of Bordeaux intoxicates with good taste and tastes.

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