French term meaning ‘high country’ which was used in the Middle Ages to describe the area upstream of bordeaux which produced wines (and had done for longer than Bordeaux since at the beginning of the Christian era winemaking spread north west from Narbonne towards the Atlantic). This included gaillac, bergerac, Quercy (modern cahors), and Nérac (buzet). The more dependable climate here often produced wines stronger than the light, thin wines then made in the Bordeaux region itself and were seen as a serious commercial threat. The port of Bordeaux penalized them by taxing them heavily and barring them from the port until the region had exported its own wines. See also hundred years war.
