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
Graves (wine region) Classification of 1855, only one Graves property, Château Haut-Brion, one of the four original First growths, was included among the red wines, with all the rest being Médoc properties. All the sweet wines of the 1855 classification were from Sauternes, which is a part of Graves. A classification of Graves wine was carried out in 1953 for its red wine producers. Dry white wines were included in an updated 1959 classification. In 1987, the part of Graves containing most of the producers of its most expensive wines, closest to the city Bordeaux itself, created a separate AOC under the name