I received an invitation to a wine tasting recently, promoted as the Bay Area's biggest and best Bordeaux tasting event of the year. Sponsored by K&L Wines, the "Union Des Grands Crus de Bordeaux," a coalition of about a 100 classified growths and chateaus, would be in San Francisco for one afternoon of pouring the much-heralded 2005 vintage.

I have to admit that I have always been a "California guy" when it comes to my wine preferences, but this opportunity was too tempting to miss. I was telling someone about this tasting and realized they were looking at me a little quizzically. Sure they had heard of Bordeaux, even kind of knew where it was on the map, at least sort of, well, somewhere in France, but didn't know much about the region or the wines. I recognized, as I fumbled through a rather poor explanation of why I was so excited to go, that other than a little lip-gloss, I didn't know that much about Bordeaux, either. read more