Bordeaux wine can "see the river" from their vineyards. The majority of land facing riverward is occupied by classified estates. Red Bordeaux is generally made from a blend of grapes. Permitted grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and rarely Carménère. Today Carménère is rarely used, with Château Clerc Milon, a fifth growth Bordeaux, being one of the few to still retain Carménère vines. As a very broad generalisation, Cabernet Sauvignon (Bordeaux's second-most planted grape variety) dominates the blend in red wines produced in the Médoc and the rest of the left bank of the Gironde estuary. Typical top-quality
History of Bordeaux wine varieties responded better to the grafting than others and these varieties—Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet franc, Merlot, Semillon, Sauvignon blanc and Muscadelle—became Bordeaux's leading grapes. Due to the lucrative nature of this business, other areas in France began growing their own wines and labeling them as Bordeaux products. As profits in the Aquitaine region declined, the vignerons demanded that the government impose a law declaring that only produce from Bordeaux could be labeled with that name. The INAO or Institut National des Appellations d'Origine was created for this purpose. In the twentieth century, the French wine market saw the effects of over