inevitably, Roman genes: love is blind, not pure-bred. Over the centuries they
were joined by Visigoths and Saracens, Britons (themselves a mixture of Angles,
Saxons and Normans), followed by the Jews, Navarrese and Lombards, along
with the Dutch, Irish and Scots, not forgetting the Hanseatic and Baltic peoples
as well as South Sea Islanders, North Africans, Senegalese, Italians, Spaniards
and Portuguese: for 2,000 years Bordeaux has been a trade city, as cosmopolitan
as Hong Kong, Rio and New York put together, and has long been a magnet for
anyone in search of wealth and success.
Bordeaux has never got anywhere in military terms – people dominated here
not by the sword but rather with plough and sickle or abacus and stylus. The Ro-
mans never had a garrison here, remaining in Blavia (Blaye) on the right bank of
the Gironde. Citizens adapted to conquerors in public and were decadent in se-
cret. The dark chapter of the Second World War with its submarine port, depor-
tation station and Maurice Papon, Secretary General of the Gironde from 1942
to 1944 who was convicted of being an accomplice to crimes against humanity
in a sensational trial in 1998, and of the world of wine which disintegrated into
collaborators, emigrants and silent victims and which suffered from a severe
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shortage of manpower, is an inglorious story that has not yet been fully told:
Bordeaux prefers to leave its evil spirits alone and its bodies deeply buried. How-
ever, its reputation was never truly damaged: even the worst characters were
unable to resist the otherworldly charms of the wine and its native land, like
the allure of a lady of easy virtue. Bordeaux is a city which runs wild in beauti-
ful finery during the day and then at night is redolent of the demimonde like a
perfume that bewitches the senses.
It is ironic that the Bordelais have a woman – Eleanor of Aquitaine – to thank
for making wine into such an all-powerful asset, because for a long time, the
Bordelais would not even allow women into their cellars for fear of them turn-
ing the grape juice sour. But these same Bordelais would happily squander their
money in the city's brothels or the city theatre (which was built in 1738 only
to burn down 17 years later, leading to the construction of the current Grand
Théâtre by the architect Victor Louis, now a major attraction of this city that
was named a World Heritage Site in 2007). And these same Bordelais would
conclude their transactions –generally in private alcoves – so loudly that the few
real culture lovers persuaded the king's intendant to establish France's first pub-
lic park, or Jardin Public, in Bordeaux in 1746, where good male society could
finally swagger in the open air or the shade of the Atlas cedars.
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Eleanor of Aquitaine was the granddaughter of William the Troubadour Duke
of Aquitaine, the wife of the French King Louis VII before an annulment was
granted. She was also a crusader and the incestuous lover of her uncle Raymond
of Poitiers. In 1151 she married the heir to the English throne Henry IIPlantagen-
et who was ten years her junior, for whom she produced eight children includ-
ing Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland whom Ivanhoe fans will know
from Walter Scott's chivalric novel, before instigating a plot against her husband
and consequently being imprisoned for ten years. There are numerous legends
about this determined lady. Only one of these is relevant to us, and it is demon-
strably true: thanks to her, Bordeaux came under English rule for 300 years, and
thus became the island kingdom's wine cellar, in top vintages brimming over
with the equivalent of Switzerland's current annual production.
Vines were then planted in the ‘palus' – fertile alluvial soils along the Garonne,
which to the west of the city joins up with the Dordogne, into which the Isle
flows at Libourne. This land definitely has no shortage of water. Bordeaux owes
its reputation not the greatest terroirs in the world, but instead to deep soils that
are rather unsuitable for top wines from today's perspective. The region pul-
sates to the rhythm of the tides and is shaped by a rainy Atlantic climate. This
once again demonstrates that terroir has as much to do with commercial policy
and a strategic transport location as it does with geology and climate.
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History The new French claret
The wines from these soils were a translucent, clear, bright red colour like
virtually all of the ‘red wines' produced in the cultivation area we now call
France up until the mid-19th century. The English called it claret, which in
Britain remains a synonym for Bordeaux to this day. These wines were not even
particularly elegant or refined, as people would sometimes have us believe.
Instead, they had a robust constitution in order to withstand the rigours of
shipping in reasonable condition and so that they only turned sour once poured
into the purchaser's glass. Without a doubt, they would have been sweet and
sparkling as happens to wines today if we leave them to their own devices,
which was the practice at the time. The few historic sources citing wines with
their origins (Andely, Rabelais, Villon) make no mention of Bordeaux until the
late 16th century.
The New French Claret
The concept of a Grand Vin, differing from standard wine like a prince from
a pauper, came to the owner of a plot called Ho Brian (Haut-Brion) to the south
of Bordeaux between 1550 and 1650, a flash of inspiration which should earn
him a heartfelt tribute from any halfway grateful