The name Bordeaux derives from: "Au Bord des Eaux" - Meaning Along the Waters
3 minute short "The Splendor of Bordeaux"

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Bordeaux—This word carries an almost mythic status and fires the mind with anticipation of greatness.  No other wine region in the world is a more important source of notorious great wines, and Bordeaux can truly be called the largest fine wine vineyard on the globe. 
Foreword by courtesy of KAREN MAC NEIL*—THE WINE BIBLE—NEW YORK

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Bordeaux is the ultimate symbol of wine, everywhere in the world. No other wine region is more powerful, commercially developed, or more important as a source of profoundly complex, age-worthy great wines.

The challenge is to comprehend it all. It is without question the largest fine wine vineyard on the globe.  The Bordeaux appellation covers more territory than all of the vineyards of Germany put together and it is ten times larger than the vineyard acreage of New Zealand. In Bordeaux some 15,000 growers, amongst which figure hundreds of top-class estates – plus thousands of lesser standing – together produce a daunting 750 million bottles of wine every year, including many of the priciest wines in the world.

Just about halfway between the North Pole and the Equator, Bordeaux lies along the path of three important rivers—The Gironde, which is in fact the Estuary itself, plus the two rivers that feed it, the Dordogne and the Garonne. To the immediate West is the Atlantic Ocean, and everywhere the region is crisscrossed by small streams.  These waters play a critical role in shaping the region and the wine it produces.  Bordeaux is mostly a red-wine region. More than 80% of the wine made is red.  Five grape varietals are used and they are almost always blended together.

*Karen Mc Neil is currently Director of the Wine Program
of the American Culinary Institute in California - Napa Valley.

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