Encarta fine wines - The Making Of Magnificent Bordeaux Wines

Among wine lovers and investors, a discussion of vintage is usually a reference to the magnificent wines of Bordeaux. And vintage is the distillation of the memory of the vine and its terroir. French winemakers regard as sacrosanct the concept of wines having a sense of place. Terrior is the soil on which the vines are grown, the lie of the land, altitude, the degree of slopes on a hill and the orientation to the sun. A beneficent Terrior requires a generous microclimate in which great grapes can grow when every drop of rain, ray of sunshine and humidity conspire with nature to ripen the grapes, to just the right moment when they are picked. Near the sea, amid a confluence of rivers, Bordeaux is entirely dedicated to the growing of wines and has been giving the world unequalled vintages.