French Wine Trivia
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89 free French Wine trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
France did not invent wine, but it wrote the rulebook. Its appellation system, its 1855 Bordeaux league table and its obsession with the exact patch of ground a vine grows on shaped how the whole world talks about wine, and the stories behind those rules are stranger than the labels suggest: a duke who outlawed a grape, a village that legislated against aliens, a pest that nearly wiped out the nation's vineyards. These 89 questions travel region by region. Bordeaux and its châteaux, Burgundy's monks and tiny plots, the Rhône's hills and papal history, the Loire, Champagne, Beaujolais, the Jura and the sun-baked south all get their turn, along with the brandies, the grape science and the modern laws that govern what a French bottle may say. It suits anyone who enjoys a glass and wants the backstory, from pub-quiz regulars to sommelier students. Each answer comes with a short explanation and a source, so you learn something even on the ones you miss.
30 of 89 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In 1954 Châteauneuf-du-Pape's village council passed a still-valid law banning what from landing in its vineyards?
UFOs
UFOs, then called 'flying cigars', were banned by the mayor's council in 1954 amid a French saucer craze; whether it was fear or a publicity stunt for the wine, the decree has never been repealed.
Q 02Pinot Noir's name comes from the shape of its tightly clustered bunches, which are said to resemble what?
A pine cone
A pine cone is what the tight bunches recall, hence 'pinot' from 'pin', French for pine; the same tightly packed clusters leave the thin-skinned grape unusually prone to rot.
Q 03Which folk remedy did desperate French growers try against phylloxera before grafting finally beat it?
A live toad under each vine
A live toad under each vine was meant to draw out the 'poison'; the cure did nothing, and it took grafting onto resistant American rootstock to save the vineyards.
Q 04Which Duke of Burgundy outlawed the 'disloyal' Gamay grape in 1395, cementing Pinot Noir's hold on the Côte d'Or?
Philip the Bold
Philip the Bold banned Gamay in 1395 as a 'disloyal' plant of 'very great and horrible harshness', pushing it south to Beaujolais, where it thrives today.
Q 05Merlot's name is thought to be a diminutive of 'merle', the French word for which bird?
Blackbird
Blackbird is what 'merle' means in French; the grape may be named for its blue-black colour or for the birds' fondness for the ripe fruit, and nobody is sure which.
Q 06A 1991 report on the 'French paradox', the French diet's puzzlingly low heart-disease rate, aired on which US TV show?
60 Minutes
60 Minutes floated red wine as the reason the French eat rich food yet suffer less heart disease, and US red wine sales jumped by about 40% within a year of the broadcast.
Q 07In Sideways, Merlot-hating Miles drinks his prized 1961 bottle from which Bordeaux estate in a fast-food restaurant?
Château Cheval Blanc
Château Cheval Blanc 1961 goes down from a disposable styrofoam cup; the joke is that this Saint-Émilion is blended partly from Merlot, the very grape Miles refuses to drink.
Q 08Which Médoc commune, with only 3,000 acres of vines, is home to three of Bordeaux's five first-growth châteaux?
Pauillac
Pauillac holds Lafite Rothschild, Latour and Mouton Rothschild; Mouton made it three only in 1973, the sole promotion to first growth since the 1855 classification was drawn up.
Q 09Bordeaux's wine brokers ranked the châteaux of the 1855 classification chiefly by what, rather than by tasting?
Their trading price
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.
Q 10Mouton Rothschild's 1973 label, the year of its promotion to first growth, honoured which artist, who died that April?
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso, who died on 8 April 1973, was honoured on that year's label; since 1945 Baron Philippe de Rothschild had put a different artist's work on almost every vintage.
Q 11Which diarist praised 'a sort of French wine called Ho Bryan' after drinking it at a London tavern in 1663?
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys found it had 'a good and most particular taste' at the Royal Oak Tavern; the wine was Haut-Brion, which Charles II had been serving at court since 1660.
Q 12Pomerol, whose Pétrus sells for first-growth prices, is the one major Bordeaux district without what?
An official ranking
An official ranking has never been drawn up for Pomerol, often put down to its late rise: it joined Bordeaux's most prestigious names only in the second half of the 20th century.
Q 13Traders from which country drained the swampy Médoc in the 17th century so its famous vineyards could be planted?
Holland
Q 21Legend says Burgundy's Corton hill went over to white grapes because which emperor's wife hated red stains on his beard?
Charlemagne
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.
Q 22A traditional kir adds crème de cassis to a white made from which Burgundy grape, Chardonnay's lesser-known neighbour?
Aligoté
Aligoté is the classic base of kir, long known simply as blanc-cassis until Dijon's mayor Félix Kir made it famous by serving it to visiting delegations.
Q 23Pouilly-Fuissé, often confused with the Loire's Pouilly-Fumé, is a Chardonnay from which subregion of Burgundy?
Mâconnais
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.
Q 14Whose 1152 marriage to Henry Plantagenet put Bordeaux's vineyards under English rule and launched the claret trade?
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor of Aquitaine brought Bordeaux with her lands, and it stayed under the English crown for three centuries, until France retook the province in 1453.
Q 15Bordeaux's 'en primeur' campaign, held each spring after the harvest, sells the new vintage in what state?
Still ageing in the barrel
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.
Q 16Bordeaux mixture, the copper spray devised by botanist Millardet in the 1880s, was developed against which vine disease?
Downy mildew
Downy mildew was the target: Millardet noticed that roadside vines daubed with copper and lime to deter grape thieves stayed healthy while the rest of the vineyard sickened.
Q 17Burgundy's UNESCO-listed vineyard plots, each precisely delimited and named, are called what?
Climats
Climats are named plots, each with its own soil and microclimate, which is why Burgundy's best wines carry a vineyard's name rather than a grape's; UNESCO listed them in 2015.
Q 18Which Burgundy vineyard's 1945 vintage, the last from its pre-phylloxera vines, sold for $558,000 a bottle in 2018?
Romanée-Conti
Romanée-Conti made only 600 bottles in 1945 before its old ungrafted vines were torn out; the replanted vineyard gave no vintage again until 1952.
Q 19Monks of which order created Burgundy's walled Clos de Vougeot vineyard, from the 12th century onward?
Cistercians
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.
Q 20Chablis grows on Kimmeridge Clay, a Jurassic soil named after a village on the coast of which English county?
Dorset
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.
Mâconnais is Burgundy's southern end, and Pouilly-Fuissé's vines surround the Rock of Solutré, where Stone Age hunters left a vast deposit of horse and reindeer bones.
Q 24In Burgundy's four-tier hierarchy, which level sits above premier cru, despite the name suggesting premier is top?
Grand cru
Grand cru is Burgundy's top rung, with premier cru just below; the Médoc's 1855 classification does the opposite, putting its premiers crus, the first growths, at the very top.
Q 25Beaujolais's cru Moulin-à-Vent, renamed when it gained AOC status in 1936, takes its name from what local landmark?
A windmill
A windmill gives Moulin-à-Vent its name, and it is one of ten Beaujolais crus alongside villages such as Fleurie, Morgon and Brouilly.
Q 26Beaujolais's signature method ferments whole, uncrushed grapes in a sealed, oxygen-free tank; what is it called?
Carbonic maceration
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.
Q 27Champagne's vineyards sit on a subsoil of what, left behind when ancient seas receded 70 million years ago?
Chalk
Chalk drains well and holds the sun's heat for the vines, and Champagne's houses dug their cool cellars straight into it, some in old chalk quarries running for kilometres.
Q 28Châteauneuf-du-Pape's list of permitted grapes, led by Grenache, traditionally runs to how many varieties?
13
13 is the traditional count, but the 2009 rules stretched the list to eighteen by counting the white, pink and black forms of some grapes separately; Château de Beaucastel is one of the few estates to blend all thirteen.
Q 29Côte-Rôtie's Syrah reds may be co-fermented with up to 20% of which white grape, added for its aroma?
Viognier
Viognier, the perfumed white of neighbouring Condrieu, goes into the vat with the Syrah and is thought to deepen the red's colour as well as scent it; most growers add far less than the 20% allowed.
Q 30The 'fumé' in the Loire's Pouilly-Fumé, across the river from Sancerre, refers to what?
A smoky, gunflint aroma
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'.