History of the five First Growths of Bordeaux, looking at why these five châteaux – Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion and Mouton – became the most famous names in the world of wine, and what it takes to remain at the top.

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Excerpt:
By the time the French Revolution swept into Bordeaux, the First Growths were well established as serious forces guiding the local wine market, and their owners found much of the eighteenth century a profitable and enjoyable place to be. Their status as nobles, however, meant that inevitably they were directly in the firing line of the huge social changes that rocked France, and three of the five estates would find themselves minus their owners by the time the dust had settled.

Bordeaux suffered one of the harshest reprisals of any French city during the Revolution, mainly because of its association with the political faction known as Les Girondins, who had initially been enthusiastic supporters of the 1789 uprising, but who were seen as enemies of the revolutionary forces by the early 1790s. Even though most of the parliamentarians in the city had no connection to them at all, they were damned by association. Of the 800 families that comprised the Bordeaux nobility, around half were to disappear by the early nineteenth century. In total, 79 Bordeaux nobles, including 36 members of parliament, were beheaded. A further 408 people chose exile, most heading to Spain, and those who remained behind were stripped of their titles, and taxed so harshly as to threaten all remnants of their former existence.