Gourmet-Alcohol

In the 1300s, King Edward I demanded that Bordeaux wines—Saint-Émilion, specifically—be shipped up to England for his pleasure. Ever since then, the reds, whites and sweet Sauternes of Bordeaux have been collected and traded by kings and queens, nobles and notable wine aficionados. There’s the grand chateaux of the Left Bank—the Lafites and Margauxs, all classified first growth during Napoleon III’s C lassification of Bordeaux Wines in 1855 . Then there’s the Sauternes region on the banks of Garonne, where botrytis -afflicted grapes transform into wildly ageable dessert wines. And there’s the Right Bank , where the legendary producers of Saint-Émilion and Pomerol usher Merlot into perfect ripeness. “Bordeaux is the region for aged wine,” says Nick Daddona, advanced sommelier and founder of Wine Key . “Reds begin to develop secondary characteristics at about five years; dusty earth, cedar, white mushrooms and herbs. Even whites are meant to age—the Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc win