Luxury Vacations in Bordeaux

Not all Bordeaux’s pleasures come by the glass: a deal with a Chartrons antique dealer, fresh Arcachon oysters at the Marché des Capucins, the taste of a rum-sweet canelé. And then there is the city's Place de la Bourse – an 18th-century square so grand it steals gasps from those who stumble into its embrace.

But Bordeaux’s rich, full-bodied heritage is hard to resist, be it on a bar’s cobbled terrace or at La Cité du Vin, a slick museum charting wine’s long, tendrilled history. Oenophiles will inevitably find themselves dreaming of the region’s vineyards: Saint-Émilion, perhaps, Pauillac or Médoc – appellations revered the world over, each waiting to be savoured.