Bordeaux wine Bordeaux wines, Bordeaux AOC & Bordeaux Supérieur AOC today account for 55% of all Bordeaux wines consumed in the world. Plan Bordeaux is an initiative introduced in 2005 by ONIVINS, the French vintners association, designed to reduce France's wine glut and improve sales. Part of the plan is to uproot 17,000 hectares of the 124,000 hectares of vineyards in Bordeaux. The wine industry in Bordeaux has been experiencing economic problems in the face of strong international competition from New World wines and declining wine consumption in France. In 2004, exports to the U.S. plummeted 59% in value over the previous
Ancient Rome and wine ripening of grapes. In the 1st century AD, Pliny notes that the settlement of Vienne (near what is now the Côte-Rôtie AOC) produced a resinated wine that fetched high prices in Rome. Wine historian Hanneke Wilson notes that this Rhone wine was the first truly French wine to receive international acclaim. The first mention of Roman interest in the Bordeaux region was in Strabo's report to Augustus that there were no vines down the river Tarn towards Garonne into the region known as Burdigala. The wine for this seaport was being supplied by the "high country" region of Gaillac in