Bordeaux is going through a revolution. Up against a market that's become more interested in what's going into the ground than big name Château styles, a whole generation of growers is reshaping what Bordeaux means for the modern drinker today.

We see this in the new names that come into our orbit – naturally made, well-farmed bottles from inspired young producers (like Osamu Uchida, or Ormiale). But, it might surprise some to hear: our favorite well-established estates are working this way, too (case in point: the 15th generation, biodynamic Château Le Puy). 

It's a region well worth a re-visit, whether that's in a glass or – like our Director of Events, Colleen Allerton-Hollier – worth the plane trip. We share insights from her eye-opening trip, below.

As a professional wine student, I would liken flying over the intersection of the Garonne and Dordogne Rivers to a 5th grader being plucked out of their desk and dropped into Narnia. It was totally surreal. In 2023, I was lucky enough to travel with Vins de Bordeaux and see what had only previously lived in my textbooks. There really is nothing like getting your boots on the ground in a place like Bordeaux to have everything you thought you knew about it substantiated in ways you didn’t expect.

I was standing on the bank of the Ciron River wide-eyed, mouth agape while the rest of my group was putting on helmets to begin a vineyard tour via contraptions that looked like segways/spelled certain death for someone as uncoordinated as me. I politely excused myself from the excursion (by inventing a preexisting condition which required me having a Sauternes-based cocktail at the Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey while the rest of the group whizzed through Semillon vines.) I was simply unaware that I was allowed to not only drink Sauternes so casually– on a Monday afternoon(!), but also within the most refreshing, inventive cocktail I’d had in years.

As a Louisiana native, they had me at “we’re going on a boat today.” In all the ways I’d pictured wine tourism in Bordeaux, on a boat with bubbles and a bevy of raw seafood never came to mind. Well, sometimes life is awesome, and you end up on a boat near Arcachon discovering that Cremant de Bordeaux absolutely slays with fresh oysters.  (pic is of Pauline Lapierre Dietrich from Chateau Haut-Rian) Highly recommend making this happen for yourself someday.

Before my trip to Bordeaux, I thought a place so steeped in winemaking tradition and history might be reluctant to respond to modernity, but at every turn I was shown how eager this generation of Bordelais vigneron is to subvert the world’s expectations of their wines. I met young winemakers who were excited to make fresh, quaffable wines and dedicated to farming and vinifying via more sustainable practices than generations past.

My time in Bordeaux was not only a blast, but also a paradigm-shifting reminder that the places in your textbooks are real; their people are real. It’s the people who change what a place means to you. And we always say, people are the best part of wine.