Photo by Boudewijn Boer on Unsplash
France made the modern grammar of wine. Bordeaux for blends, Burgundy for varietal purity, Champagne for fizz, Loire for freshness, Rhône for warmth, Alsace for aromatic whites, Provence for rosé. Twelve major wine regions, hundreds of appellations, a vocabulary the rest of the world borrowed.
Regions
Beaujolais
Ten granite crus, one grape, a natural-wine revolution
Bordeaux
Left Bank gravels, Right Bank clay, one world-class appellation
Burgundy
One thousand climats of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
Champagne
The chalk cellars and Grand Cru villages of the world's benchmark sparkling wine
Grapes
Rhone Valley
Syrah, Viognier and Grenache across two hundred kilometres of the Rhone