where was the merlot wine grape originally grown
Merlot The earliest recorded mention of Merlot (under the synonym of Merlau) was in the notes of a local Bordeaux official who in 1784 labeled wine made from the grape in the Libournais region as one of the area's best. In 1824, the word Merlot itself appeared in an article on Médoc wine where it was described that the grape was named after the local black bird (called merlau in the local variant of Occitan language, mèrle in standard) who liked eating the ripe grapes on the vine. Other descriptions of the grape from the 19th century called the variety lou seme doù flube (meaning "the seedling from the river") with the grape thought to have originated on one of the islands found along the Garonne river.[1]
History of Bordeaux wine In the seventeenth century, Dutch traders began to drain the marshland around the Médoc and encouraged the planting of vineyards. The Dutch would also open new distribution channels to the Bourgeosis which helped usher in a second era of prosperity.[13] At the turn of the 18th century, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out which made navigation along the French coast line and the English channel very risky. Additionally, the tensions between English and French governments halted all "official" trade between Bordeaux and the London market. Despite the government sanction, bottles of prized Bordeaux wines began showing up in large quantities at auction houses in London, Bristol, and Plymouth as the captured bounty of privateers. Wine historian, Hugh Johnson, speculates that this was an arranged affair between the Bordeaux chateaux, the privateers and the London auction houses to get around the war time politics of the period.[14]