Ep 598: The Médoc and the Haut-Médoc of Bordeaux

Wine for Normal People

Arts, Food

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week I cover the regional AOCs of Medoc and Haut-Medoc, which wraps up our exploration of the Left Bank of Bordeaux. These two areas can cover a lot of ground, but they are usually used for discreet geographies in the north and south of the Médoc Peninsula.

Because each AOC is so large and varied, I do a deep dive into the whole of the region and then into the particularities of the smaller Médoc AOC in the northwest of the Médoc and the Haut-Médoc in the south, around the city of Bordeaux and to the west of the communal appellations (Margaux, St. Julien, Pauillac, and Saint Éstephe).

I review the history, geology, terroir, grapes (including the new grapes for exploration and the new WHITE Médoc AOC as of 2025), wines, and recommended châteaux.

Photo: The 1855 Classification, 5th Growth. The Cantemerle write in!

Full show notes and all back episodes are on Patreon. Become a member today!

www.patreon.com/winefornormalpeople

_______________________________________________________________

Check out my exclusive sponsor, Wine Access. They have an amazing selection -- once you get hooked on their wines, they will be your go-to! Make sure you join the Wine Access-Wine For Normal People wine club for wines I select delivered to you quarterly

To register for an AWESOME, LIVE WFNP class with Elizabeth or get a class gift certificate for the wine lover in your life go to: www.winefornormalpeople.com/classes

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:15.8	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and Certified Wine Dork.
0:21.4	This episode is brought to you by Wine Access. If you love discovering incredible wines
0:26.2	without the guest work, check them out. Wine Access works directly with top winemakers
0:30.4	around the world to bring you highly rated bottles that you can't find locally.
0:34.8	Their team tastes thousands of wines each year only selects the very best.
0:38.8	Go to wine access.com slash WFMP to get in the site and let them know you found out about them
0:44.7	through me. Listen in the middle of the show for more details. Now this time I really mean it.
0:50.3	This is the last of the Bordeaux episodes for now now, maybe at some point, we will do some more,
0:57.6	and I'm happy to take any of your suggestions or recommendations. For completeness, I did want to do
1:03.8	the medak and the Omedoc. And the reason that I'm doing this is because I feel like I have talked about all of the
1:12.9	details of these places and not talked about what these things are. And you may see these
1:17.8	on bottles of Bordeaux that are prestigious. You may see them on everyday bottles. You may
1:23.3	wonder why there's a difference in price. And I think it's important to give you a high-level view of these two appellations.
1:30.1	They are also big.
1:31.9	They are confusing.
1:33.6	They are also extremely variable.
1:35.8	So I want to put you on the right path to getting really great wines because these are our everyday wines for the most part.
1:45.7	Some of them are more than that,
1:51.3	but the Maedoc and O. Medoc are our everyday wines. These are not like the four that I'm going to do in the grates of Bordeaux Part 2 class. March 28th, Shameless Plug. And by the way,
1:56.8	it's another daytime class so Europeans can take it. This is a great way to get into
2:01.2	Bordeaux. It's inexpensive. It's better than just Bordeaux or Bordeaux Superior. This is a really
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wine for Normal People, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wine for Normal People and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.