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A wine’s style is one of its most difficult attributes to grasp. Every wine has a number of different characteristics. They are, for the most part, relatively intuitive: a wine can be full-bodied or thin, it can have high alcohol or moderate alcohol, it can have crisp acidity or be relatively lacking in acidity (or flat), it can have a lot of tannic grip or a just a little – the list goes on and on. When wine lovers talk about style, however, it’s rather more difficult to divine just what they’re discussing. The easiest way to describe style is, “the annually consistent characteristics endowed by nature or by man upon a wine.”

Left Bank and Right Bank
Among the red wines of the Bordeaux region, the most basic division is between the wines of the “Left Bank” and the wines of the “Right Bank.” Bordeaux is a port city strategically placed on the Garonne river as it flows from the Pyrénées north into the Atlantic. The Garonne is joined just past the city of Bordeaux by the Dordogne, which originates in the Massif Central of France, and these two rivers join to form the broad Gironde, which gives its name to the entire province. On the left bank of this river is the Médoc peninsula, and on the right the city of Libourne and the surrounding area known as the Libournais.

There has long been a rivalry between these two districts, although the Libournais was, in fact, settled long before the city of Bordeaux. The oldest settlements in this region go back 30,000 years to the times of the Neanderthal, and Roman legions found well established towns when Caesar invaded in 55 AD. Organized vineyards were established early in the Roman era, and the Roman poet Ausonius gives his name to one of the leading properties of St. Emilion, Château Ausone, although the site of his actual vineyards is still in question.

Geology
The city of Bordeaux existed as a trading port in Roman times, but its importance as a wine-producing region came only later. The reason for this is that the area is located on deep beds of gravel deposited by the river over millions of years, and in pre-modern times it was marshy wetlands dominated by scrubby pine trees. This region had to be drained and cleared in order to be cultivated for vineyard use, and the first notable vineyards were planted in the 10th century. Now that this land has been recovered, the underlying gravel beds provide an ideal subsoil for the vine, allowing the Cabernet Sauvignon, notably, to ripen to perfection. Left bank wines, accordingly, are dominated by the Cabernet Sauvignon grape.

The right bank, however, has a completely different geology. The central vine-growing region is located on a limestone plateau whose erosion has formed clay-based soil on the slopes that descend from this plateau. The surrounding area is typified by other outcroppings of limestone and areas of clay that provide a heavier soil type, one ideal for the production of the Merlot grape that dominates the majority of wines from this area.

The difference between the left bank and the right bank, then, is first and foremost one of grape variety. The thick-skinned Cabernet Sauvignon grape produces wine that is deeply colored and tannic while the thinner-skinned Merlot grape can ripen to higher sugar levels, but generally has less tannic structure and lower levels of acidity. The ultimate importance of these differences is that the wines of the Médoc are firm, structured, a bit reserved, and can be a bit austere under less-than-ideal circumstances, while the wines of the Libournais are rich, soft, velvety, and can be a bit flabby in the wrong sort of vintage.

Economics
There’s another, more subtle, difference as well. In the era of river traffic, the Bordelais controlled the river traffic, and thus the levy of taxes. Over time, this advantage put them in a dominant position in the region, and they were able to exclude the wines of other regions from export markets. From the 16th century forward, the wines of the city of Bordeaux (known as Graves for all the gravel in the soil), and a bit later from the Médoc peninsula, became renowned among wine lovers throughout the western world.

The fame of these wines grew to such a point that when the négociants of the region were asked to rank the leading wines of the region for the 1855 World’s Exhibition, there were no wines at all from the Right Bank included in the classification. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the wines of the Libournais were produced by small growers on modest farms, while those of the Médoc were produced by the aristocracy who lived in grandiose châteaux. This is reflected in the character of the wines: those of the left bank are regal, polished, and classically elegant, while those of the right bank are robust, voluptuous and sensually exuberant.

Les Garagistes
The iconoclastic temperament of right bank producers can be seen in the modern trend as small wineries focused on producing the very best results, even if their vineyards are not located in one of the traditionally prestigious precincts. These growers, who labor over even the smallest detail in order to extract the very best quality, are known as “garagistes” because they make their tiny cuvées sometimes, literally, in their garages. This trend, started by the Pomerol producer Le Pin, has been taken up by a number of producers in the area, from Valandraud to La Gomerie to Gracia and many others. These wines tend to by hyper-ripe, inky black, soft, velvety, and delicious, even upon release - quite a stylistic revolution from the sophisticated refinement of the first growths of the Médoc.

Stylistic variation in Bordeaux goes much further than this, of course. Ultimately, each little town or commune has its own style, and individual châteaux within these communes also have well defined styles. While it’s true that some wines are better than others, it would be unwise to assert that one style is inherently superior to another. Each provides a different lens through which one can view the gracious achievements of the Bordeaux winemakers.