France's Bordeaux region contains only 2 percent of the world's vineyard land, but in terms of global wine exports, it accounts for 4 percent of total volume and a whopping 10 percent of total value. What is it that makes Bordeaux so sought after?
Certainly a winemaking tradition that pre-dates recorded history helps. Of the five Bordeaux chateaux designated as "First Growths," no records exist that indicate when they began making wine. But we do know that in April 1663, the 17th-century London diarist Samuel Pepys noted that "today I drank a sort of French wine called Ho Bryen that hath a good and most particular taste I never met with."
Clearly, what is known today as Chateau Haut-Brion was already successful at home and in demand internationally more than 300 years ago.