France makes more wine than it can reasonably drink, in more styles than any single guide can carry. This almanac is our reading of it. 1,261 regions, ranked the way we'd visit them; the houses our critics keep returning to; and a short list of restaurants where we'd spend the evening.
France
France
1,261
57,223
8,257
The country, in numbers and adjectives.
The terroirs, by hand.
9 regions worth the trip first — chosen by the Femente desk for the houses we’d open with, the variety of styles within each, and the cooking that grew up around them.
Bordeaux
Bordeaux obsesses over the marriage of place and grape: Left Bank estates build cabernet around gravel and limestone, while Right Bank…
Bourgogne
Burgundy's wines taste of restraint and terroir obsession: mineral-edged pinot noir and chardonnay that reveal vineyard character before…
Champagne
Champagne's finest growers chase precision over scale, coaxing mineral salinity and brioche depth from chalk-based soils that demand…
Languedoc-Roussillon
Languedoc-Roussillon makes wine from the garrigue up—wild herbs and limestone soil shapes everything from entry-level reds to ambitious…
Loire Valley
Vouvray's cellars age wines that span from bone-dry to lusciously sweet, all from a single grape—Chenin Blanc's range mirrors the river's…
Rhone Valley
The Rhône splits itself between granite-fed northern reds of brutal elegance and southern blends where Grenache sprawls across limestone,…
Vin de Pays
Vin de Pays producers trade appellations' constraints for freedom, crafting wines that taste of ambition rather than regulation—oak-aged…
Southern Rhône
Grenache bends to heat and stone here, softening into pepper and leather rather than jam—a tension between ripeness and restraint that…
Libournais
3,069 estates working under the regional appellation.
The country’s house grammar.
The 8 styles France makes most of, ranked by bottle count on Femente. The bar beneath each cell shows that style’s share of france’s production.
29,133
Languedoc-Roussillon Red — the country’s most numerous bottle.
25,182
25,000
21,700
14,820
14,302
11,363
10,657
The houses that keep showing up.
9 France estates the prestige critics have agreed on — ordered by the count of 95+ scores across Vinous, Decanter, Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator.
Where to spend the evening.
12 rooms across France our editors keep coming back to — chosen for the cooking and the wine list, in that order.
L’Ambroisie
French Style — Paris
100
Epicure
French Style · Fine Dining — Paris
100
Arpège Paris
Grill · Modern — Paris
100
Le Petit Nice Passedat
Grill · Seafood · Mediterranean — Marseille
100
Four Seasons George V Paris
Fine Dining · French Style — Paris
100
Baumanière *****
Traditional · French Style — Les Baux-de-Provence
100
Alexandre Mazzia
Modern · French Style — Marseille
100
Gilles Goujon
Grill · French Style · Fine Dining — Fontjoncouse
100
La Villa Madie
Seafood · Mediterranean — Cassis
100
Restaurant Mirazur
Fine Dining — Menton
100
Les maisons Troisgros
French Style — Ouches
100
HAJIME
Grill · Traditional · French Style — Paris
100
Add France to your cellar journal — or pick a region and start walking.
A short note in your inbox when we add a new region, find a winery worth crossing town for, or open a tasting we’d send you to. No noise. Just the ones we’d book ourselves.