Pauillac: Chateau Bellegrave Red

Situated in the beautiful South-West of France, Bordeaux is one of the country's largest wine-growing areas, covering over 125,000 hectares. With the Atlantic to the west, its coastal temperatures are moderated by the Gulf Stream, making it an ideal place for vines to thrive. The region produces a staggering 900 million bottles a year, ranging from large quantities of common Vin de Pays to some of the most prestigious and expensive wines in the world.

One of the most prestigious commune appellations of the Haut-Médoc, overlooking the Gironde estuary on the left bank of Bordeaux, home to three of the region's five First Growths - Lafite Rothschild, Latour, and Mouton Rothschild. Covering some 1,200 hectares of gravel soils ideally suited to the grape, it produces red wine exclusively, built chiefly on Cabernet Sauvignon (around 62% of plantings) blended with Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot. The wines are the very benchmark of the Médoc: powerful, deeply concentrated, and firmly structured, showing red and black fruit, dried herbs, tobacco, cedar, and oak spice. Famously robust and age-worthy, Pauillac produces some of the finest and longest-lived reds in the world.