The Haut-Médoc appellation

The landscape of the Haut-Médoc may not be remarkable but it is peppered with grandiose château buildings erected and embellished with the money to be made from selling classed growth red bordeaux. Certainly the Haut-Médoc today is nothing if not stratified, thanks largely to the effects of the 1855 classification of its most famous estates, which recognized 60 of them as first, second, third, fourth, and fifth growths, commercial and social positions from which none but Ch mouton rothschild has so far been able to escape.