Chateau Haut Gravet 2000

Chateau Haut Gravet Saint-Emillion Grand Cru 2000.The finest wine this estate has produced. The saturated purple coloured 2000 offers sweet nose and blackberry, cherry and cassis fruit intermixed with smoke and pain grille. Full bodied, opulent, rich and concentrated, with superb purity as well as melted tannin. A sleeper of the vintage -Robert Parker. 

A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France. Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world. 89% of wine produced in Bordeaux is red (called "claret" in Britain), with notable sweet white wines such as Chateau Y Quem, dry whites, rosé and sparkling wines (Cremant de Bordeaux) all making up the remainder. Bordeaux wine is made by more than 8,500 producers or Chateau. There are 60 appellation of Bordeaux wine.

The history of wine production seems to have begun sometime after 48 AD, during the Roman occupation of St Emillion, when the Romans established vineyards to cultivate wine for the soldiers.However, it is only in 71 AD that Pliny recorded the first real evidence of vineyards in Bordeaux. France's first extensive vineyards were established by Rome in around 122 BC in today's Langludoc, the better part of two hundred years earlier.

Although domestically popular, French wine was seldom exported, as the area covered by vineyards and the volume of wine produced were low. In the 12th century however, the popularity of Bordeaux wines increased dramatically following the marriage of Henry Plantagent and Alinor d Aqitaine. The marriage made the province of Aquitaine English territory, and thenceforth the majority of Bordeaux was exported This accounts for the ubiquity of claret in England.

As the popularity of Bordeaux wine increased, the vineyards expanded to accommodate the demands from abroad. Being the land tax beneficiary, Henry II was in favor of this industry, and to increase it further, abolished export taxes to England from the Aquitaine region. In the 13th and 14th century, a code of business practices called the police de vins emerged to give Bordeaux wine a distinct trade advantage over its neighboring regions.