"Wine gets more sublime after you've tasted the ridiculous."

We started with a brief review of yesterday's "wine countries": The Loire Valley and Alsace, and Steve introduced the concept of "premier cru" and "grand cru," common in Alsace and in Burgundy. A grand cru is a vineyard with some distinction, the "best," if you will, and "premier cru" is "better than good." But in Bordeaux, the rating system is entirely different: the legendary "first growth/second growth" ranking of chateaus, a ranking from 1855 which remains the standard to this day. It's another reminder of just how long this winegrowing and winemaking business has been going on in France, and how little time we've actually been doing it here.

We focused today on Burgundy and Bordeaux. Burgundy is a relatively small region in southeastern France, and it contains Chablis; the Côte d'Or (not "the gold coast," but short for "Côte d'Orient," or "eastern slopes"); Chalonnais, Macon, and Beaujolais. Steve says Beaujolais is a step-child and shouldn't be classified with the rest of Burgundy, as it has its own peculiarities (most notably, the gamay grape, Georges du Boeuf, and Nouveau Beaujolais: "'Fun' is the operative word here."). Burgundy is home to red wines — always pinot noir — and white wines — always chardonnay — each in a variety of styles. To generalize, red wines from the northern regions tend to be bigger bodied and more tannic, becoming more rounded, lush, and accessible as you go south. We spent a great deal of time talking about the Côte d'Or ("This is the place!") because of their reputation of producing the best pinot noirs and chardonnays (in the buttery Meursault style), the wine styles that are the inspiration of winemakers internationally.

Steve showed us a fancy trick of the pen to divide the Bordeaux region — home to the world's best Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots — into four significant areas. The river valley, "Entre Deux Mers," is too wet and fertile to make wonderful wine. The western area below the city of Bordeaux is home to Sauternes and Barsac ("essentially the same"), where the boytritis mold reliably turns the semillon and sauvignon blanc grapes into magnificent dessert wines. The remaining areas in the west, Graves, Medoc, Haut Medoc, are significant for magnificent red blends: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdon, with Cabernet Sauvignon playing the starring role. Across the Garonne River to the east, the grapes are the same, but Merlot is typically more prominent.

SO MUCH TO LEARN! In Bordeaux, wineries are called Chateaux. Typically, a chateau makes one wine, period. They've developed their own specific style and they strive to maintain it from year to year: consequently, a ranking received in 1855 truly does have contemporary value.

On a bottle of wine from Bordeaux, you want to see the (exact) words: "Mis en bouteilles au chateau." That means the wine was made by the grower. Otherwise, you're getting a negociant wine made from the worst Bordeaux has to offer. And Steve was kind enough to give us the opportunity to taste for ourselves.

Today, we tasted seven wines: six French reds, and a Barsac. We had a Moulin-A-Vent from Georges du Boeuf, a bottle with flowers on the label. One of the first things David ever told me about wine was "Never buy wine with flowers on the label." As far as I can tell, that advice holds true. This is wine "that you drink from a big glass, while you barbecue." But seriously, there's a place for that. We had a Chinon (from the Loire Valley), a light red wine made from Cabernet Franc that tasted like "chewing on a twig," according to Steve. But he meant that in a good way.

The first of our splendid wines was a Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru, "a balance between power and delicacy," a wine that got increasingly more fragrant and delicious the longer it stood in the glass. We did a comparative tasting between three Bordeaux products: a "generic" Mouton Cadet ("Where's the pleasure in that?"), a Chateau Charmail from the Haut-Medoc, with dark fruity flavors, and a "legendary" 2000 Chateau Petit Bocq that Steve brought from his home cellar (a half bottle). It filled the glass up with aroma. This was a Serious Wine.

Topping it all off (and you couldn't go back: one sip of this ruined your taste for any of the previous wines) was a 1996 Chateau Coutet from Barsac, the sweet dessert wine. The initial aroma was odd and chemically — "like brand new shower curtain," Steve said, and he was right. That was some mustiness from the mold, and from years in the bottle. But that soon faded away, leaving honey intensity that was shocking in its sweetness. Cheese. Nuts. Long conversation. Bring on the cake, if you must, but much, much later.