BORDEAUX WINES. More and better wines have been shipped from Bordeaux to all parts of the world than from any other port. But the wine that passed through Bordeaux was not always Bordeaux wine. For the past 7oo years, during the three centuries of English rule in Gascony until the early part of the 2oth century, the merchants of Bordeaux spent a great deal of trouble and money—and the lawyers of Bordeaux have displayed great ingenuity—to decide which wines were and which were not entitled to the name of Bordeaux.
Since Feb. 18, 1911, the French law has laid down which wines have alone the right to be sold as Bordeaux wines; they are the wines made from grapes gathered within the Gironde Departement, a departement named after the River Gironde, which is the name given to the River Garonne from the Bec d'Ambes, below Bor deaux, where it receives the waters of the Dordogne, until it reaches the Bay of Biscay.
The Gironde Departement produces approximately 84 million gallons of Bordeaux wine in an average year, of which some 64 million are red and 20 million white wines. This immense quantity of wine is far from uniform in quality. The best red and white wines of Bordeaux are those of four distinct districts within the Gironde Departement, i.e., the Medoc, Graves, Sauternes and St. Emilion districts. But there are many other vineyards in the un dulating country between the rivers Dordogne and Garonne, a dis trict known as the Entre-deux-mers, from which much white wine and very much more red wine is made which is of very fair quality when climatic conditions are favourable. There are also many vineyards planted in rich alluvial soil close to river banks and upon the islands of the River Gironde, which produce much wine,mostly red, of a commoner type, yet entitled to the name of Bordeaux.
A wine sold merely as "Bordeaux" is, or should be, a wine, or a blend of wines, made from grapes grown within the Gironde Departement.
A Bordeaux wine made from the vineyards of one of the better districts of the Gironde, such as Medoc, Graves, St. Emilion, or Sauternes, is sold under the name of its native district, whether it be the produce of a single vineyard or a blend of wines from a number of different vineyards within the same district.
The finest of all Bordeaux wines are the following: Red Wines.—Ch5.teau Lafite--(Medoc) ; Chateau Margaux— (Medoc) ; Chateau Latour—(Medoc) ; Chateau Haut Brion— (Graves) ; Chateau Ausone—(St. Emilion) ; Chateau Yquem— (Sauternes).
The better class wines of Bordeaux are kept in cask for about three years, before they are bottled, and they should be kept some years in bottle—the better the wine the longer should it be kept.
Bordeaux wines are bottled either "at the chateau," i.e., in the cellars of the estate where the wine is made, or "at Bordeaux," by the Bordeaux merchants, or in any part of the world by the mer chants who import their wine in casks and bottle it themselves.
A chateau bottled or Bordeaux bottled wine is not necessarily better than the same wine shipped in cask and bottled by the im porting merchant, but it is of ten preferred on account of the guar antee of origin which chateau bottling carries. (See CLARET, GRAVES, MiDOC, SAUTERNES.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Andre L. Simon, Wine and Spirits 0919); The Bibliography.-Andre L. Simon, Wine and Spirits 0919); The Blood of the Grape (192o); Wine and the Wine Trade (1921); The Supply, the Care and the Sale of Wine (1923); Ed. Feret, Bordeaux et ses vins classes par ordre de merite (Bordeaux, 1908) ; F. Malvezin Bordeaux; histoire de la vigne et du vin en Aquitaine depuis les origines jusqu'd nos jours (1919) ; Wine Trade Record: "Clarets and Sauternes" (192o); H. Warner Allen, The Wines of France (1924)• (A. L. S.)