The 4, in numbers
In 4 names, that is 55 of the 61 red growths of the Classification of 1855 (opens in a new tab): 9 in 10. The list was the Bordeaux brokers’ ranking by price, and its other 6 red growths are in Haut-Médoc (opens in a new tab) and Pessac-Léognan (opens in a new tab).
What tells them apart
Margaux is the only one of the 4 spread over several whole communes: Arsac, Labarde, Soussans, and Margaux-Cantenac. That is 4 communes since Margaux and Cantenac merged on January 1, 2017, and it was 5 before that. It lies on a plateau of small Garonne pebbles, and its wines are the most scented of the Médoc (opens in a new tab). About 62 estates make some 9 million bottles a year there, and Château Margaux (opens in a new tab) is the First Growth among them.
Pauillac is one commune with parcels of 4 neighbors, and it holds 3 of the 5 First Growths: Lafite Rothschild (opens in a new tab), Latour (opens in a new tab) and Mouton Rothschild (opens in a new tab). No other appellation holds more than one. Its 18 growths make about 90% of its wine. The gravel is deep and the wines are what most people have in mind when they say Bordeaux: cassis, cedar, a frame of tannin that takes 10 years to relax.
Saint-Julien has no First Growth. Its 929 hectares, on a gravel rise 5 kilometers long, are shared by 19 growers, 11 of them classified, and those 11 make about 90% of the wine, as in Pauillac. The style sits between the perfume of Margaux and the structure of Pauillac.
Saint-Estèphe is the northernmost and the coolest, and the only one of the 4 whose appellation stops exactly at its commune line. There is more clay in the soil, over hard limestone in the west. It keeps the vines supplied with water in a hot year and makes the wines firmer and slower. The planting follows: 40% Merlot (opens in a new tab), the largest share of the 4. It has 5 growths of 1855 and the most estates, because much of it is not classified land at all. The 2025 classification lists 9 Crus Bourgeois (opens in a new tab) here, and the Crus Artisans (opens in a new tab), a list of small estates whose owners work their own vines, holds 3.
Down the river, in 4 words
Going north from Bordeaux, which is down the river toward the sea, the order on the map is Margaux, Saint-Julien, Pauillac, Saint-Estèphe, with Haut-Médoc filling the gaps between them. Perfume, poise, power, then grip.