The Quick Guides

Two ways to learn Bordeaux on this page. First, a game that reads a label back to you, line by line. Then the 50 guides, each one answering a single question in its first line and explaining the answer after it.

Guides written and signed by Guto Assumpção, Master of Bordeaux.

Cover the name. Let the label talk.

Set the label to match the bottle in front of you: choose its appellation, its rank words, its vintage, and its color. Each line of the reading then tells you what that part of the label means and opens the guide behind it. Without a bottle, press “Pour me one” and the game picks one for you.

Mis en bouteille au château

the name is covered

750 ml13,5 % vol.Produit de France

What this label tells you

A 2015 Pauillac, Grand Cru Classé en 1855

  1. 01

    Left Bank, deep gravel, Cabernet Sauvignon: the commune of 3 of the 5 First Growths.

    → The 4 Médoc communes
  2. 02

    Red is dry by rule: 3 grams of sugar a liter at most, from Bordeaux to Pauillac.

    → Dry or sweet?
  3. 03

    Grand Cru Classé en 1855 is a rank: one of 61 reds priced into a list in April 1855 and formally changed only 2 times since.

    → The 6 classifications
  4. 04

    The 2015 vintage: Warm, dry spring and summer; August storms eased the drought. What came out best: The Right Bank; Margaux and Saint-Julien kept up; dry whites.

    → The vintages, 2000 to 2026
  5. 05

    A classified growth opens at about 10 years (Jancis Robinson): this 2015, around 2025.

    → How long Bordeaux ages
  6. 06

    Serve at 16 to 18 °C (61 to 64 °F). At 11 years, decant 1 to 2 hours before.

    → Decanting
  7. 07

    At the table: lamb, rib steak, duck; Cabernet’s tannin wants fat.

    → Food with Bordeaux
  8. 08

    The famous prices belong to a few hundred estates like this one; most Bordeaux is not expensive.

    → Why Bordeaux costs what it costs

The 50 guides

By level

Opening a bottle

  1. 1 Five lines that carry you through any Bordeaux dinner Not tricks, but 5 true things, each of which opens a conversation instead of closing one. First Glass
  2. 2 Is Bordeaux dry or sweet? Red is dry, white is dry unless it says otherwise, and a handful of appellations make nothing but sweet wine. The label tells you which. First Glass
  3. 3 Should you decant Bordeaux? And for how long? The same decanter does 2 opposite jobs. Which job you ask of it decides how long the wine stays there. First Glass
  4. 4 At what temperature should you serve Bordeaux? Four numbers, one glass shape, and a cool, dark place cover most of what goes wrong between the cellar and the table. First Glass
  5. 5 What food goes with Bordeaux? Tannin wants fat, acidity wants salt, and sugar wants either salt or acidity. The region’s own kitchen already knew. First Glass
  6. 6 How long can Bordeaux age? From 2 years for a simple dry white to 50 for a Sauternes, with the source behind every figure. At the Table
  7. 7 How to hold a vertical or horizontal wine tasting Hold the wine still and move the year, or hold the year still and move the wine. Either way, one thing changes and you watch it. At the Table

What is in the bottle

  1. 8 What is a second wine in Bordeaux? Not a lesser appellation, not a cheap copy: a decision made vat by vat. First Glass
  2. 9 What grapes are allowed in Bordeaux? Everyone can name 3. The rulebook names 6, and since 2021 it has been admitting more. First Glass
  3. 10 Bordeaux vs Burgundy: what is the difference? Different grapes, a different idea of what deserves a rank, a region 3 times the size, and a bottle you can tell apart across the room. First Glass
  4. 11 Is Bordeaux a grape? No, it is a place The name on the bottle is an address. The grapes are listed in a rulebook, and 2 of them do most of the work. First Glass
  5. 12 What is dry white Bordeaux? Two grapes, 2 styles, and a handful of names that tell you which one is in the bottle. First Glass
  6. 13 Is vinho bordô the same as Bordeaux? A Brazilian wine with a French-sounding name, made from an American grape. What links it to Bordeaux is a word that became the name of a color. First Glass
  7. 14 What is noble rot, and how does it make Sauternes? A fungus, a cold river meeting a warm one, and a rule that rules out the machine without naming it. At the Table
  8. 15 Bordeaux vs Bordeaux Supérieur: what is the difference? The same land, the same grapes, a stricter rulebook. Supérieur is a set of numbers, not a rank. At the Table
  9. 16 What is claret, and why do the English call Bordeaux that? A French word for a pale red, 3 centuries of English rule over Bordeaux, and a labeling term the appellation wrote into its rulebook in 2025. At the Table
  10. 17 What is a third wine in Bordeaux? Usually the third selection of the same harvest, bottled under the estate’s name instead of being sold off in bulk. At the Table
  11. 18 How red Bordeaux is made, from picking to bottle Picked by plot, sorted 2 times, fermented by lot, blended by taste, and aged in barrel. The craft is in the choosing. In the Cellar

The land

  1. 19 Left Bank vs Right Bank: what is the difference? Cabernet on gravel, Merlot on clay. True often enough to teach, and wrong often enough to trip you up. First Glass
  2. 20 How to visit Bordeaux wine châteaux Book ahead, pick one district a day, start in the city, and let the train do the driving where it can. First Glass
  3. 21 Gravel or clay, and how the soil picks the grape Warm stones for a late grape, cold clay for an early one. Then the blend does the rest. At the Table
  4. 22 Margaux, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Saint-Estèphe compared Four names, 4 characters, and 55 of the 61 red growths of the Classification of 1855. At the Table
  5. 23 Pomerol vs Saint-Émilion: what is the difference? They share a border, a river town and a grape. They differ in size, in stone, and in whether anyone ranks them. At the Table
  6. 24 Médoc vs Haut-Médoc: what is the difference? One peninsula, 2 wide appellations and 6 communal ones, and a word, Haut, that has nothing to do with height. At the Table
  7. 25 Graves vs Pessac-Léognan: what is the difference? One gravel country south of the city, split in 1987, with a classification older than the appellation that holds all of it. At the Table
  8. 26 What is Entre-deux-Mers, and where do its red wines go? The land between the 2 rivers is mostly planted to red, and for 86 years its own name was kept for white. At the Table
  9. 27 What is Côtes de Bordeaux? One appellation, 5 stretches of hillside that never touch, and a place name on the label that asks more of the wine. At the Table
  10. 28 What are the satellites of Saint-Émilion and Pomerol? Five appellations that borrow a famous neighbor’s name, keep their own land, and stay outside the classification. At the Table
  11. 29 Is Barsac a Sauternes? One commune with 2 names to choose from, 1 list of 1855 for both, and 3 sweet appellations looking at them across the river. At the Table
  12. 30 Why Bordeaux vintages vary so much An ocean on one side, a pine forest in between, an estuary down the middle, and a spring night that can take half the crop. In the Cellar

The ranks

  1. 31 What are the 5 First Growths of Bordeaux? Four were named in 1855. The 5th waited 118 years. And the odd one out was on the list from the start. First Glass
  2. 32 Saint-Émilion Grand Cru vs Grand Cru Classé Three phrases a label can carry, a word or 2 apart. Only one of them is a rank. At the Table
  3. 33 What are the 6 lists that rank Bordeaux? One has been formally changed only 2 times since 1855, one is rebuilt every 10 years, and one scores the grower before the wine. At the Table
  4. 34 What does Cru Bourgeois mean on a Médoc label? Three tiers, 170 estates, a jury that looks at the cellar and the shop as well as the glass, and a list that starts from nothing every 5 years. At the Table
  5. 35 Why Pomerol has no classification Petrus and Le Pin carry no rank. The commune is small, its estates are smaller, and something else does the ordering. At the Table
  6. 36 What are the super seconds of Bordeaux? A merchants’ phrase, not a rank. The Classification of 1855 has never ordered estates inside a tier, so the market does it instead. At the Table
  7. 37 What does château mean on a Bordeaux label? The word is protected in European law. What it protects is a working estate, not a castle. In the Cellar

Label, vintage and price

  1. 38 How to read a Bordeaux label in 60 seconds Every line on the front is required by law, regulated by decree, or marketing. Learn which is which. First Glass
  2. 39 Why is Bordeaux wine so expensive? Most of it is not The famous prices belong to a few hundred estates. Half the vineyard makes wine that no classification covers. First Glass
  3. 40 Who makes supermarket Bordeaux? Most brand Bordeaux is made by a merchant from wine it buys. The bottling line says so, if you know where to look. First Glass
  4. 41 The best Bordeaux vintages from 2000 to 2026, year by year Twenty-seven harvests in one table, told by the weather that decided each one and the side of the river it favored. At the Table
  5. 42 How to read wine scores and a Bordeaux vintage report What 92 means, why a barrel score comes as a range, and what to look for in a report before the number. At the Table
  6. 43 Birth-year Bordeaux: which wines last 21 years? The year is fixed the day the child is born. The tier, the format, and the cellar are the parts left to choose. At the Table
  7. 44 How to read a cahier des charges, the appellation rulebook Every appellation has a rulebook. Almost nobody reads it, and it answers most of the questions. In the Cellar
  8. 45 How to judge an old bottle of Bordeaux The label tells you what the bottle claims to be. The glass, the capsule, and the paperwork tell you what it has been through. In the Cellar

The trade

  1. 46 How does Bordeaux en primeur work? The wine is tasted in April and bottled 2 years later, and everyone in the chain is exposed for a different reason. At the Table
  2. 47 Which Bordeaux wines do people search for most? Fourteen of the 20 wines on Wine-Searcher’s most searched list of 2025 were Bordeaux, and all but 2 of them were ranked in 1855. At the Table
  3. 48 The Bordeaux wine crisis in numbers Hectares pulled up, aid paid by the hectare, sales under 3 million hectoliters: every figure with its date. At the Table
  4. 49 What do courtiers and négociants do in Bordeaux? The estate rarely sells to you. On la place, it sells to a merchant through a broker who never owns a bottle, and the merchant sells to the world. In the Cellar
  5. 50 How does the fine Bordeaux secondary market work? Once the en primeur campaign is over, the wine keeps changing hands, usually without leaving the warehouse, on a market that publishes its prices. In the Cellar