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
Rheinhessen (wine region) on the hessian side during the post-war area. Rheinhessen produces mostly white wine from a variety of grapes, particularly Müller-Thurgau (4.320 ha), Riesling (3.769 ha) and Silvaner (2.467 ha), and is best known as the home of Liebfraumilch, although some previously underrated Rieslings are also made, increasingly in a powerful dry style. The wine region is member of the Great Wine Capitals Global Network. The Rhine forms the eastern and northern boundary of the region, with the river Nahe to the west and the Haardt Mountains to the south. The Palatinate wine region lies to the south, the Rheingau lies