France

Despite their own complacency, occasional arrogance and impressive challenges from all-comers, France is still far and away the finest wine producing nation in the world. Its famous regions – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Loire, Rhône, Alsace and increasingly Languedoc Roussillon – read like a desert island disc of fine wines, a who’s who of everything you could ever want from a wine. 

Full-bodied, light-bodied, still or fizzy, dry or sweet, simple or intellectual, weird and wonderful, for drinking now or for laying down, France’s infinitesimal variety of wines is one of its great attributes. And that’s without even mentioning Cognac and Armagnac.

France’s grape varieties are grown, and its wines copied, throughout the world. It also brandishes with relish its trump card, the untranslatable ‘terroir’ that shapes a wine’s character beyond the ken of human knowledge and intervention. It is this terroir - a combination of soil and microclimate - that makes Vosne-Romanée taste different to Nuits St Georges, Ch. Langoa-Barton different to Ch. Léoville-Barton.

France is a nation with over 2000 years history of winemaking, where the finest grapes and parcels of land have been selected through centuries of trial and error, not through market research. Its subtleties are never-ending and endlessly fascinating. Vintage variation is as great here as anywhere – rain, hail, frost and occasionally burning heat can ruin a vintage. But all this creates interest, it gives the wines personality, and generates great excitement when everything does come together.

However, this is not to say that French wine is perfect. Its overall quality remains inconsistent and its intricate system of classification and appellation controlée based on geography rather than quality is clearly flawed. Appellation Contrôlée is one of France’s great attributes but can also act as a straitjacket to experimentation and improvement.

Nevertheless, the future is bright for France; quality is better than ever before – driven by a young, well-traveled, ambitious generation of winemakers - while each year reveals new and exciting wines from this grand old dame.