Bordeaux was once a white-wine region as much as a red — into the 1950s white varieties covered more ground than black. The modern dry style was rebuilt in the 1980s around Sauvignon Blanc's aromatic nerve, cold fermentation and early bottling, with Sémillon for flesh and a spoonful of Muscadelle for flowers.
It lives two lives: the bright, saline apéritif whites of Entre-deux-Mers, drunk on the year; and the barrel-fermented Sauvignon-Sémillon of Pessac-Léognan, among the longest-lived dry whites on earth, closer in spirit to great Burgundy than to anything else in the Gironde.