History of Bordeaux wine dry, 3.2% for sweet). History of Bordeaux wine The history of Bordeaux wine spans almost 2000 years to Roman times when the first vineyards were planted. In the Middle Ages, the marriage of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine opened the Bordeaux region to the English market and eventually to the world's stage. The Gironde estuary and its tributaries, the Garonne and the Dordogne rivers play a pivotal role in the history and success of this region. Bordeaux wine production seems to have begun sometime after 43 AD, during the Roman occupation of Gaul, when the Romans established vineyards to
Sparkling wine Champagne. Sparkling wine Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it, making it fizzy. Commonly called champagne, EU countries legally reserve that term for products exclusively produced in the Champagne region of France. Usually sparkling wine is white or rosé, but there are examples of red sparkling wines such as the Italian Brachetto, Bonarda and Lambrusco, Australian sparkling Shiraz, and Azerbaijani "Pearl of Azerbaijan" made from Madrasa grapes. The sweetness of sparkling wine can range from very dry "brut" styles to sweeter "doux" varieties (French for 'raw' and 'sweet', respectively). The sparkling quality of these