Claret is surrounded by an intimidating aura. The very word, an English invention for the red wines of Bordeaux, derived from clairet, a deep-coloured rosé from the same region, suggests the oak-panelled walls of a gentleman’s club or the cut and thrust of an Oxbridge common room. That this region of south-west France has been producing some of the finest wines in the world since the seventeenth century is due not only to the genius of its winemakers, but also to the ideal geographical and geological conditions in what is the largest vine-growing area of France. Layers of limestone and calcium form a soil structure of clay and gravel; it benefits from two rivers, the Dordogne and the Garonne – which runs through Bordeaux itself – as well as various tributaries of