Deep in the south of France, in the world-famous Languedoc-Roussillon region

Yves Delmas, owner of Domaine La Noble, and Dan Kravitz, an American importer, found the special terroir here to be perfect for yielding classically proportioned Bordeaux grape varietals such as cabernet sauvignon and merlot, but also Rhone varietals such as syrah, mourvedre and grenache.

But this particular bottle of La Noble is a clean and straight merlot. A French wine must have 100 percent of the varietal in the bottle to be able to have its name on the label, and this in turn makes for easier marketing in the United States.

French wine magnate Bernard Magrez has expanded the boundaries of his wine empire further

Since 2005, Magrez has been making a small amount of wine in the area from purchased grapes, which is what convinced him of the quality of the terroir. In three to four years, he plans to make two cuvées from his own vines: an entry-level wine and a "cuvee d'exception" made from lower yields, all manually harvested and sorted and destemmed.

As part of his diversification, Magrez is selling three of his Bordeaux properties—Châteaux Bois Pertuis, Haut Mouleyre and Bois Chantant. All three produced entry-level Bordeaux AOC wines. "The deal is not finalized," Magrez said. "We want to sell these three because they are no longer part of our strategy. We are refocusing on high-quality vineyards."

Wine: The Purest Pour

"The French wine world seems to have been bitten by a bug," observed food writer François Simon in Le Figaro recently. The pest in question is a tiny but evangelistic movement devoted to vin naturel — wine made completely without chemical intervention. It's an approach that "flies in the face of the practices widely used in viticulture," says Dominique Lacout, author of a natural wine-lovers' guide.

Pioneered in the 1960s by Beaujolais enologist Jules Chauvet, natural wine-making strives for a pure expression of the vintage and land through organic farming and the banning of modern cellar practices like adding laboratory yeasts, chaptalization (adding sugar to increase alcohol content) and filtering.

Wine flavor can depend on barrels

The main purpose of the wine barrel is to add the vanilla and oak flavors that many consumers enjoy.

French oak is widely accepted as the best barrel to use in winemaking because of its long history with the process, the quality of the oak used and the techniques utilized by the French coopers in constructing the barrels. French oak barrels are popular because they are known to provide the most flavors.

Unfortunately French wine barrels are becoming very expensive. Taransaud, a noted barrel producer, is offering their best barrel for more than $1,400. Most French barrels are in the $800 price range. American barrels are half that cost. The typical barrel holds only 59 gallons or 25 cases of wine. Now you know why red wine costs more than most whites.

Global champagne exports pop all-time record

Only 33,500 hectares (83,000 acres) of vineyard are dedicated to champagne production, all in the Reims region of northeast France, under the country's strict Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC) wine classification system.

By comparision, the Bordeaux wine-growing region alone has more than 120,000 hectares of grapes under cultivation.

But the champagne world is bracing for a mini-revolution as French wine officials prepare to accept 40 new towns into the AOC, which currently counts 317, allowing dozens of new producers to market champagne wine.