The largest AOC area in France, with 86,000ha of vineyard plantings and 60 million cases produced annually, when combined with the peerless pedigree of the world famous reds, the whites of Graves and the seductive Sauternes make this a region you cannot ignore.

Some of the best value Bordeaux wines are crafted by the petits (small) châteaux. They offer serious, estate-grown and château-bottled wines crafted by quality conscious individuals. These producers work hard at upping the stakes, and many are delivering earlier drinking, riper styles that allow a user-friendly route into the complex world of Bordeaux wine appreciation.

If you’ve enjoyed Cabernet, Merlot or, indeed, Cabernet Merlot, then it pays to know the rivers of great and merely very good wines that flow from within its much classified and over-discussed boundaries.

Down in south-western France, the Dordogne and the Garonne rivers flow together to form the Gironde Estuary, effectively splitting the Bordeaux wine region into the Left Bank on its western side and the Right Bank on its east. The main factor that distinguishes their respective wines is the composition of the blends: the reds of the Left Bank are dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, while the Right Bank wines focus on Merlot.

It bears remembering that good producers don’t make bad wines, no matter what the year. Value and quality are constants; your palate will tell you when you strike them.

Our long-established Bordeaux relationships give us access to the very best, to wines that have tiny allocations and big hearts, and to a selection that describes better than words can why this region is so irresistible.