The 1000-sq-km wine-growing area around the city of Bordeaux is - along with Burgundy - France's most important producer of top-quality wines. Bordeaux is subdivided into 53 appellations (production areas whose climate and soil impart distinctive characteristics upon the wine produced there) that are grouped into six familles. The majority of the region's diverse wines - red, rosés, sweet and dry whites, sparkling wines - have earned the right to include the abbreviation AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) on their labels, indicating that the contents have been grown, fermented and aged according to strict regulations governing such matters as the number of vines permitted per hectare. The regions production averages 660 million bottles of wine per year.

Bordeaux has many thousands of châteaux, a term that in this context refers not to palatial residences but rather to the properties where grapes are raised, picked, fermented and then matured as wine. The smaller châteaux sometimes accept walk-in visitors, but at many of the better known ones (eg Château Mouton-Rothschild) you have to make an appointment. Most of the châteaux are closed in August. Each vineyard has different rules and regulations about tasting (dégustation): at some it's free, others make you pay, while yet others don't serve their wines at all.

Traditionally, Bordelais wine-makers have dealt with city-based négociants (merchants) to market their wine and have not sold direct from source, as is the case in other wine-growing areas of France such as Burgundy or Alsace. Perhaps for this reason many châteaux here - even ones 'open to the public' - are less-than-welcoming to casual visitors. You will probably have better luck tasting and purchasing wines at retail wine merchants (such as those in Saint Émilion) than at châteaux - and at least at the shops you can produce a credit card to pay for a case of wine, something almost unheard of at the châteaux.