I was thinking about the short posts the other day. Thought it might be an idea to use the shorter posts to explain the bigger blogs a bit better.
So given I’ve just been harvesting in Bordeaux (My Back Is In Bloody Agony! 16/10/13) and there’s a few bits and pieces in here that might not be all that clear, this seemed a good place to start!
Easy first one here, where the bugger is Bordeaux? A cheeky map of France (that I’ve piked off someone on the internet!) sorts us out. Check out the South West.
A bit more exactly, below is a “Wine Map” of the area around Bordeaux.
You may have heard the terms “Left Bank” and “Right Bank”. I remember hearing these for the first time without a clue what they meant. It’s actually really so much easier than you’d think.
The area used to be a big old patch of marshland back in the day. These days it’s dominated by the Gironde Estuary, which flows in from the Atlantic. This splits into two rivers, the Dordogne to the north, and the Garonne to the south.
The right bank is the area to the north and east of the Gironde/Dordogne.
The left bank is the area to the south and west of the Gironde/Garonne.
The bit in the middle (in light green in the map) is called Entre-Deux-Mers. For those of you who stayed awake in GCSE French lessons, you’ll know that this means literally “between two seas”.
The reason people make this regional distinction has to do with soil types and climate differences (after the marshes dried out), meaning different grapes grown and growing methods to some extent.
Not so hard right? Ok, geography lesson over for today.
Cheers
