Best of Bordeaux. Rolf Bichsel

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       needed a grape variety that could withstand the capricious Atlantic climate:

       Biturica, mentioned by Pliny the Elder and the agronomist Columella, and pos-

      sibly a cross of varieties introduced from Spain and the Balkans. They planted

       this wherever space could be found, gobbling up the terroir. And when they har-

      vested more wine than they could drink, they sent the surplus to the newly con-

      quered northern provinces of Brittany and Britain which had no lack of thirsty

       throats but had had no success in growing vines despite numerous attempts to

       select more resistant varieties. This required ships and a port, and Burdigala was

       thus founded (thank you Jupiter), at least if historians are to be believed, as their

       friends the archaeologists have not yet managed to find the Roman docks which

       they presume to have existed in the most enterprising locations of the city.

       One thing is certain: Bordeaux became the largest, most important wine city

       in the world, as the half-moon-shaped meander of the Garonne – into which

       numerous streams flow and where the original inhabitants of Bordeaux estab-

      lished a settlement – was not only easy to defend, it also proved to be a perfect

       natural port thanks to all the inflows from rivers such as the Lot, Tarn, Aveyron,

       Baïse and Gers which chose the Garonne as their outlet. Then, and now, it acts as

       an interchange and is the inevitable final stage of a journey from the hinterland

       (nearly a quarter of modern France) along the almost 100 kilometre Gironde

       estuary to the Atlantic, and offers links to the world's interconnected oceans.

       In Bordeaux, the tides are still so strong that the river goes into reverse every

       eight hours – acting as the perfect outboard motor for Roman galleys. By the first

       century AD, Burdigala was already an emporium and a trade port, as recorded

       by the historian Strabo.

       Without its port, Bordeaux would now be part of a region called Libourne

       rather than the other way around, for the right bank of the Dordogne in Saint-

      Emilion – where Atlantic influences are more tempered and olive trees and cork

       oaks are able to survive in clay and gravel soils – contained what was an ideal

       Lafite Rothschild

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       History Fact and fiction

       winemaking terroir for the Romans, rather than the sandy and gravelly river

       sediment on the left bank of the Garonne to the north and west of the city where

       the Romans probably grew their vines, or the scree to the south which Bordeaux

       locals planted from the 16th century. And least of all on the gravel hilltops of

       the Médoc, which only became accessible all year round once Dutch engineers

       had drained the surrounding marshes using a sophisticated system of channels

       and sluices. But even so, Saint-Emilion and Pomerol, whose winemaking his-

      tory apparently has Roman roots (the name is a reference to fruit cultivation,

       with ‘poma' meaning apple but also fruit in general, so why not grapes?), stood

       at the gates of the city of Libourne, which failed to rival Bordeaux despite its

       small port. Rural Libourne thus produced wine primarily for personal use until

       the mid-18th century.

       In fact, the ditches and furrows which the Romans supposedly carved out of

       the limestone rock to facilitate the rooting of their vines (as mentioned in nu-

      merous scholarly books) have been shown by recent research to date from the

       18th century. Furthermore, scholars have long been arguing about the location

       of the remains of the grandiose Villa Lucaniacus belonging to Roman statesman

       and poet Ausonius. But they are hardly likely to be slumbering in Saint-Emilion

       and are thus of no use as proof of the wonderful wines which the town is sup-

      posed to have already been producing at the time.

       Arnaud II. de Pontac

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       Fact and fiction

       Ausonius went down in Bordeaux history because he scratched ‘Oh father-

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