Most conversations about wine end up mentioning France. Our Gallic neighbours vie with Italy to be the largest wine producer of all, but France has a history and culture that few can match. Most of the wine names we know, from cabernet sauvignon to Bordeaux, are French.
French wine, and French wine law, is complicated with multiple appellations, grape varieties and subregions, but there are eight basic wine-producing regions in France. It is worth knowing them as they can often give a good idea of how the wine will taste.
The three best known are Bordeaux, Burgundy (Bourgogne) and Champagne.
Bordeaux is in the southwest of France, close to the sea, which gives it a cool maritime climate. The region is home to some of the most famous names of all; Châteaux Lafite, Latour, Mouton-Rothschild, Haut-Brion and many more. But there are more than 5,000 different châteaux (a château can be anything from a grand country house to a humble farmhouse) in the region. Bordeaux is best-known for its red wine, usually made from cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot or a blend of some or all of these. The wines are usually medium-bodied with flavour of blackcurrants, plums and cassis. They often have drying tannins, too, which make them ideal with food. Bordeaux also produces a little rosé, as well as dry and sweet white wine, made from the sauvignon blanc and semillon grapes.
Burgundy (Bourgogne in French) is the second great wine name of France. It too is home to some famous names such as Gevrey-Chambertin, Volnay, and Nuits-Saint-Georges. It produces white wines almost all made from the chardonnay grape. Famous names include Mâcon, Meursault, Chablis and Pouilly-Fuissé. Almost all of the red wines are made from the pinot noir grape. Just south of Burgundy, Beaujolais produces delicious light fruity red wines using the gamay grape.
[ A great value Bordeaux that goes well with foodOpens in new window ]
Champagne is the next great wine name of France, famous for its sparkling wine. It is both a region and a wine, about a two-hour drive east of Paris. Only wine made from grapes grown in the region can call itself Champagne. The grapes used include chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier. Most Champagne is a blend of two or three of these varieties.
Alsace, which lies along the border with Germany in the east of France, produces mainly white wine. Unusually for France, it lists the grape variety on the label. The most common white grape varieties are riesling, pinot gris, pinot blanc, and gewürztraminer. Red wine is also made from the pinot noir grape.
The Cotes du Rhône is a large region running alongside the river Rhône. Most of the wines are red, although the whites can be very good. Wines from the Northern Rhône, made from the syrah grape, are typically bold, savoury and tannic with violet aromas, and flavours of dark cherry and black olives. Wines from the warmer Southern Rhône tend to be rich and powerful with soft rounded ripe strawberry fruits and light tannins.
The Loire is the longest river in France, running for more than 1,000km from the Ardèche to Nantes on the Atlantic coast. Every kind of wine is produced along the banks of the river, including red, white, rosé, sparkling and sweet. Grape varieties include sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, and melon de Bourgogne for white wines, and cabernet franc or pinot noir for the red wines. The climate here is mild and the wines tend to be lighter in style. The most popular wines include Muscadet, Sancerre and Vouvray, all white wines.
[ John Wilson: A classic Bordeaux and a lesser-known Loire Valley whiteOpens in new window ]
The Languedoc-Roussillon is one of the largest vineyards in the world. Running from the border with Spain to the Rhône Valley and back into the mountains, the region has traditionally been a great source of inexpensive, full-bodied red wine. The wines generally offer great value for money, now including white and rosé wines too. The traditional varieties are grenache, syrah, mourvèdre, cinsault and carignan, but producers can make wine using just about any grape variety they choose under the IGP pays d’Oc label, which makes for a huge range of wines.
Provence produces red, white and rosé wines, but is best-known for its refreshing dry rosé wines. Grape varieties include grenache, cinsault, mourvèdre and others.
This only touches the intricacies of French wines. I haven’t mentioned Savoie, the Jura and Corsica, regions that are very fashionable among wine anoraks but rarely seen in Irish wine shops, or southwest France, home to some fantastic and unique wines.
