Best of Bordeaux. Rolf Bichsel. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Rolf Bichsel
Издательство: Автор
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Кулинария
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9783033059160
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appellations

       Médoc and Haut-Médoc 54

       Pessac-Léognan, Sauternes, Graves 56

       Saint-Emilion, Pomerol 57

       Map of listed estates

       Right bank 58

       South Bordeaux 60

       Médoc and Haut-Médoc 62

       Guidance 64

       200 legendary châteaux and their wines from A to Z 67

       Travel and discover

       269

       City of Bordeaux 270

       Right bank 272

       South, Médoc and Atlantic 273

       Selected addresses for visitors to Bordeaux 274

       Bordeaux service

       Cuisine 280

       Glass and decanter 282

       Storage and aging 285

       Vintage overview 288

       l

       10

       Introduction

       200 years of

       wine adventure

       Bordeaux is one of the oldest winemaking regions in the world.

       However, what we know as ‘grand vin' (‘great wine') first emer-

       ged during the 17th and 18th centuries. This development invol-

       ved immigrants from a variety of countries – Bordeaux wine is a

       universal product to the core.

       The Bordeaux story

       Success did not come about by accident, and great wines are born of great

       terroirs: ‘mother vine' (as the cliché has it) is happiest growing in sand, gravel

       and clay, sinking her roots deep into the womb of grandmother earth and bus-

      ily siphoning mineral crystals, vitamins and aromas into her grapes that grow

       and thrive before becoming Lafite Rothschild. Ten little Romans are said to

       have discovered the excellent terroirs of the Gironde, laid down their spears and

       cultivated the ancient Cabernet Sauvignon. Dionysus served as their wine con-

      sultant and was outwitted by Bacchus who introduced barrel aging, and if they

       had not died laughing they would still be blithely fertilising wine history with

       absurd rubbish. If terroir were reduced to such ridiculous tales, then two thirds

       of Bordeaux would onlybe only be good for growing radishes.

       The truth is much more prosaic. As the Gauls – or more precisely, the Gallo-

      Romans – liked to put a few drinks away (their only other pleasures were bread

       and games) and wine was too expensive to import, they began planting their

       own vines in around the second half of the first century. To do so, they first

       11

       needed a grape variety that could withstand the capricious Atlantic climate:

       Biturica, mentioned by Pliny the Elder and the agronomist Columella, and pos-

      sibly a cross of varieties introduced from Spain and the Balkans. They planted

       this wherever space could be found, gobbling up the terroir. And when they har-

      vested more wine than they could drink, they sent the surplus to the newly con-

      quered northern provinces of Brittany and Britain which had no lack of thirsty

       throats but had had no success in growing vines despite numerous attempts to

       select more resistant varieties. This required ships and a port, and Burdigala was

       thus founded (thank you Jupiter), at least if historians are to be believed, as their

       friends the archaeologists have not yet managed to find the Roman docks which

       they presume to have existed in the most enterprising locations of the city.

       One thing is certain: Bordeaux became the largest, most important wine city

       in the world, as the half-moon-shaped meander of the Garonne – into which

       numerous streams flow and where the original inhabitants of Bordeaux estab-

      lished a settlement – was not only easy to defend, it also proved to be a perfect

       natural port thanks to all the inflows from rivers such as the Lot, Tarn, Aveyron,

       Baïse and Gers which chose the Garonne as their outlet. Then, and now, it acts as

       an interchange and is the inevitable final stage of a journey from the hinterland

       (nearly a quarter of modern France) along the almost 100 kilometre Gironde

       estuary to the Atlantic, and offers links to the world's interconnected oceans.

       In Bordeaux, the tides are still so strong that the river goes into reverse every

       eight hours – acting as the perfect outboard motor for Roman galleys. By the first

       century AD, Burdigala was already an emporium and a trade port, as recorded

       by the historian Strabo.

       Without its port, Bordeaux would now be part of a region called Libourne

       rather than the other way around, for the right bank