Winelingo
France is the country every other wine nation ends up being measured against, and the reason has less to do with the grapes than with the record-keeping. Burgundian monks spent centuries working out which slope ripened differently from the one beside it, plot by plot; those parcels, the climats of the Côte d'Or, became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015. Bordeaux's brokers ranked the red wines of the Médoc into five growths for the Paris exhibition of 1855 — adding Château Haut-Brion from Graves, and classifying the sweet whites of Sauternes and Barsac in a separate list of their own — and both lists are still quoted at auction today.
The modern rulebook came later. A decree-law of 1935 created the body that became the INAO, and the first six appellations d'origine contrôlée were granted on 15 May 1936 — two of them, Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Tavel, have their own pages here. France now has more than 300 wine appellations, and each one fixes the boundary, the permitted grapes and how the vines must be grown. It is why a French label usually names a place rather than a grape: the place is meant to tell you the rest.
What French wine tastes like
There is no single French flavour, and that is rather the point. The country runs from the chalk of Champagne, where grapes barely ripen, to Mediterranean scrub above Provence.
What the wines tend to share is restraint and a savoury edge. They are built to sit beside food rather than shout on their own, so acidity stays high and ripe fruit is rarely the loudest thing in the glass.
Broadly: northern whites like Chablis, Sancerre and Alsace Riesling are dry, taut and citrusy, often with a stony or smoky note. Red Burgundy is pale and light-bodied, tasting of red cherry and forest floor. Bordeaux is firmer, with blackcurrant and a cedar note from oak. Head south and the reds warm up — Châteauneuf-du-Pape is fuller and scented with dried herbs. Sauternes, golden and sweet, tastes of honey and apricot with enough acidity to stop it cloying.
