40 Fun Facts About French Wine

In 1954 Châteauneuf-du-Pape's village council passed a still-valid law banning what from landing in its vineyards?

UFOs have been banned from Châteauneuf-du-Pape's airspace since 1954, when tales of 'flying cigars' over the vines became a media sensation. Local politicians saw a chance to promote the wine, and the law was never repealed.

Pinot Noir's name comes from the shape of its tightly clustered bunches, which are said to resemble what?

A pine cone is what the tight bunches recall, hence 'pinot' from the French for pine, while 'noir' simply describes the black berries.

As phylloxera ravaged France's vines in the late 1800s, which folk remedy did desperate growers try before grafting won?

A live toad under each vine was one desperate cure tried during the Great French Wine Blight, alongside letting poultry roam to eat the insects. Grafting onto resistant American rootstock finally saved the vineyards.

Which Duke of Burgundy outlawed the 'disloyal' Gamay grape in 1395, cementing Pinot Noir's hold on the Côte d'Or?

Philip the Bold banned Gamay in July 1395 as a 'disloyal' plant of 'very great and horrible harshness', pushing it south to Beaujolais, where it thrives today.

Merlot's name is thought to be a diminutive of 'merle', the French word for which bird?

Blackbird is what 'merle' means in French, and Merlot was probably named for the blue-black colour the grape shares with the bird's plumage.

A 1991 report on the 'French paradox', the French diet's puzzlingly low heart-disease rate, aired on which US TV show?

60 Minutes brought the French paradox to America in 1991, presenting the idea that the French eat rich food yet suffer less heart disease, with red wine floated as a possible reason.

In Sideways, Merlot-hating Miles drinks his prized 1961 bottle from which Bordeaux estate in a fast-food restaurant?

Château Cheval Blanc 1961 is the wine Miles drinks from a disposable styrofoam cup at a fast-food restaurant, a Saint-Émilion blend built largely on the Merlot he scorns.

Which Médoc commune, with only 3,000 acres of vines, is home to three of Bordeaux's five first-growth châteaux?

Pauillac holds Lafite Rothschild, Latour and Mouton Rothschild, plus 15 other classified growths, squeezed between Saint-Julien to the south and Saint-Estèphe to the north.

Bordeaux's wine brokers ranked the châteaux of the 1855 classification chiefly by what, rather than by tasting?

Their trading price, together with each château's reputation, decided the 1855 list, which is why a 19th-century market snapshot still sets Bordeaux's pecking order.

Mouton Rothschild's 1973 label, the year of its promotion to first growth, honoured which artist, who died that April?

Pablo Picasso, who died on 8 April 1973, was honoured on that year's label; Baron Philippe de Rothschild had commissioned a different artist for every vintage since 1945.

Which diarist recorded tasting 'Ho Bryen' at a London tavern in 1663, the first estate-named Bordeaux in print?

Samuel Pepys wrote of drinking 'a sort of French wine called Ho Bryen that hath a good and most particular taste', Haut-Brion having been branded specifically for the English market.

Pomerol, whose Pétrus sells for first-growth prices, is the one major Bordeaux district without what?

An official ranking has never been drawn up for Pomerol, yet Pétrus and Le Pin sell for as much as the classified first growths of the Médoc and Saint-Émilion.

Traders from which country drained the swampy Médoc in the 17th century so its famous vineyards could be planted?

Holland supplied the engineers: Dutch traders drained the Médoc's marshes, and the reclaimed land gradually surpassed the older districts as Bordeaux's most prestigious.

Whose 1152 marriage to Henry Plantagenet put Bordeaux's vineyards under English rule and launched the claret trade?

Eleanor of Aquitaine brought Bordeaux as part of her lands, and demand for its wine in England soared once her husband became Henry II two years later.

Bordeaux's annual 'en primeur' campaign, held each spring after the harvest, sells the new vintage in what state?

Still ageing in the barrel, the wine is bought as a future, often a year or more before bottling, which can make it cheaper than it will be on release.

Bordeaux mixture, the copper spray devised by botanist Millardet in the 1880s, was developed against which vine disease?

Downy mildew, an American import, was the target: Millardet noticed roadside vines doused with copper and lime to stop passers-by eating the grapes stayed healthy while the rest of the vineyard sickened.

Burgundy's UNESCO-listed vineyard plots, each precisely delimited with its own microclimate and name, are called what?

Climats are the small parcels that differ in microclimate, geography and soil, and the whole mosaic joined the World Heritage List in 2015.

Romanée-Conti's 1945, its last pre-phylloxera vintage and a $558,000 bottle in 2018, ran to roughly how many bottles?

600 bottles were all the 1945 harvest yielded, a tenth of normal, which is why so many 'Romanée-Conti 1945' bottles traded since are assumed to be forgeries.

Monks of which order created Burgundy's walled Clos de Vougeot vineyard, from the 12th century onward?

Cistercians from Cîteaux Abbey, the order's mother house, assembled the Clos de Vougeot by purchase and donation over two centuries; today the 50-hectare walled vineyard is split among more than 80 owners.

Which Burgundy town's 15th-century charity hospital has auctioned its wines every November since 1859?

Beaune's Hospices, founded for the poor in 1443 by chancellor Nicolas Rolin, sell their wines on the third Sunday of November amid a three-day feast called Les Trois Glorieuses.

Chablis grows on Kimmeridge Clay, a Jurassic soil named after a village on the coast of which English county?

Dorset's village of Kimmeridge gave the clay its name, and the same Upper Jurassic seam resurfaces across the Channel under the vines of Chablis and Sancerre.

Legend says Burgundy's Corton hill went over to white grapes because which emperor's wife hated red stains on his beard?

Charlemagne's fourth wife, Luitgard, supposedly ordered the switch, and the white-wine slope still carries his name as Corton-Charlemagne, one of Burgundy's greatest Chardonnays.

A traditional kir adds crème de cassis to a white made from which Burgundy grape, Chardonnay's lesser-known neighbour?

Aligoté wine is the classic base of kir, known in French as vin blanc cassis, and the grape's own appellation is Bourgogne Aligoté.

Pouilly-Fuissé, often confused with the Loire's Pouilly-Fumé, is a Chardonnay from which subregion of Burgundy?

Mâconnais is the southern, softer end of Burgundy, and Pouilly-Fuissé is its best-known appellation, spread over Fuissé, Solutré-Pouilly, Vergisson and Chaintré.

In Burgundy's four-tier hierarchy, which level sits above premier cru, despite the name suggesting premier is top?

Grand cru is the summit, reserved for a handful of the Côte d'Or's best sites, with premier cru, village and regional wines ranked beneath it in descending order.

Beaujolais's cru Moulin-à-Vent, renamed when it gained AOC status in 1936, takes its name from what local landmark?

A windmill gives Moulin-à-Vent its name, and it is one of ten Beaujolais crus alongside villages such as Fleurie, Morgon and Brouilly.

Beaujolais's signature method ferments whole uncrushed grapes in a tank full of carbon dioxide; what is it called?

Carbonic maceration starts fermentation inside each intact berry, giving fruity, low-tannin reds so quickly that Beaujolais nouveau can go from vine to bottle in under six weeks.

Champagne's vineyards sit on a subsoil of what, left behind when ancient seas receded 70 million years ago?

Chalk underlies the whole region, and that unique chalky landscape shaped the caves and the agro-industrial system that made sparkling wine possible in the 17th century.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape's famously long list of permitted grapes, led by Grenache, traditionally runs to how many varieties?

13 varieties became the rule in 1936, up from ten, and the 2009 rewrite stretched the list to eighteen by counting white, pink and black versions of some grapes separately.

Côte-Rôtie's Syrah reds may be co-fermented with up to 20% of which white grape, added for its aroma?

Viognier, the perfumed white of neighbouring Condrieu, must go into the vat at the same time as the Syrah under the appellation rules, a process known as cofermentation.

The 'fumé' in the Loire's Pouilly-Fumé, across the river from Sancerre, refers to what?

A smoky, gunflint aroma from the flinty soils of Pouilly-sur-Loire is one meaning; the other is the grey, smoke-coloured bloom on the ripe grapes, which locals call 'white smoke'.

Chinon's reds and rosés, from stony terraces along the Loire, are based on which grape, a junior partner in Bordeaux?

Cabernet Franc on Chinon's stony terraces gives a young wine with dominant notes of blackcurrant and anise, and the rules allow only a quarter of its Bordeaux cousin Cabernet Sauvignon.

Which region, German-ruled from 1871 to 1918, is France's only AOC area to label most wines by grape variety?

Alsace bottles Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris under the grape's name rather than a village, a Germanic habit that makes it the odd one out among France's appellation regions.

French Pinot Gris was sold as 'Tokay' until 2007, when the EU reserved that name for which country's famous sweet wine?

Hungary's Tokaji, made from Furmint rather than Pinot Gris, won the name back under a 1993 deal with the EU, and 'Tokay Pinot gris' was used as a stepping stone until 'Tokay' vanished in 2007.

The term 'crémant', used for French sparkling wines made outside Champagne, originally described what?

A creamy, gentler fizz was the original idea: crémants carried lower carbon-dioxide pressure than champagne, though today the name guarantees the champagne method under each region's own AOC rules.

Jura's vin jaune spends over six years under a yeast veil in casks that, unlike other wines' barrels, are never what?

Topped up is exactly what the casks are not: evaporation opens an air gap, the yeast film grows across the surface, and six years and three months later a nutty, sherry-like yellow wine emerges.

Which ancient people brought the wine grape to southern Gaul in the 6th century BC, planting France's first vineyards?

Greeks from the eastern Mediterranean colonised southern Gaul and brought the vine with them, centuries before Rome spread viticulture up the Rhône and beyond.

Which Mediterranean region, France's oldest wine country, now makes more than half of its wine as rosé?

Provence sells most of its output pink: rosé makes up well over half of production, though critics such as Tom Stevenson argue its spicy, full-flavoured reds are the region's best wines.

Bandol, the dark, age-worthy red of the Mediterranean coast, is the only French wine dominated by which grape?

Mourvèdre rules Bandol, expressing itself differently from terroir to terroir, while elsewhere in southern France it plays second fiddle to Grenache.

Cahors's 'black wine' of south-west France must be at least 70% which grape, known locally as Côt or Auxerrois?

Malbec is the Cahors grape, and while Argentina made it world-famous, the Lot valley had been shipping its inky 'black wine' for centuries before.