The largest wine country of the Gironde: a green plateau of hills, bastide towns and Romanesque churches between the two tidal rivers. Benedictine abbeys — La Sauve-Majeure above all — organised the medieval vineyard, and the region has fed Bordeaux's everyday cellar ever since.
The appellation on the label is white — crisp Sauvignon-led blends that are the region's modern flag — but most of the land grows Merlot for red and clairet sold as Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur. It is the workshop of the Gironde, where the region's drinking wine is made, and where its experiments quietly begin.