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40 free French Wine trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
France did not invent wine, but it wrote the rulebook. Its appellation system, its 1855 Bordeaux league table and its obsession with the exact patch of ground a vine grows on shaped how the whole world talks about wine, and the stories behind those rules are stranger than the labels suggest: a duke who outlawed a grape, a village that legislated against aliens, a pest that nearly wiped out the nation's vineyards. These 40 questions travel region by region. Bordeaux and its châteaux, Burgundy's monks and tiny plots, the Rhône's hills and papal history, the Loire, Champagne, Beaujolais, the Jura and the sun-baked south all get their turn, along with the brandies, the grape science and the modern laws that govern what a French bottle may say. It suits anyone who enjoys a glass and wants the backstory, from pub-quiz regulars to sommelier students. Each answer comes with a short explanation and a source, so you learn something even on the ones you miss.
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Q 01In 1954 Châteauneuf-du-Pape's village council passed a still-valid law banning what from landing in its vineyards?
UFOs
UFOs have been banned from Châteauneuf-du-Pape's airspace since 1954, when tales of 'flying cigars' over the vines became a media sensation. Local politicians saw a chance to promote the wine, and the law was never repealed.
Q 02Pinot Noir's name comes from the shape of its tightly clustered bunches, which are said to resemble what?
A pine cone
A pine cone is what the tight bunches recall, hence 'pinot' from the French for pine, while 'noir' simply describes the black berries.
Q 03As phylloxera ravaged France's vines in the late 1800s, which folk remedy did desperate growers try before grafting won?
A live toad under each vine
A live toad under each vine was one desperate cure tried during the Great French Wine Blight, alongside letting poultry roam to eat the insects. Grafting onto resistant American rootstock finally saved the vineyards.
Q 04Which Duke of Burgundy outlawed the 'disloyal' Gamay grape in 1395, cementing Pinot Noir's hold on the Côte d'Or?
Philip the Bold
Philip the Bold banned Gamay in July 1395 as a 'disloyal' plant of 'very great and horrible harshness', pushing it south to Beaujolais, where it thrives today.
Q 05Merlot's name is thought to be a diminutive of 'merle', the French word for which bird?
Blackbird
Blackbird is what 'merle' means in French, and Merlot was probably named for the blue-black colour the grape shares with the bird's plumage.
Q 06A 1991 report on the 'French paradox', the French diet's puzzlingly low heart-disease rate, aired on which US TV show?
60 Minutes
60 Minutes brought the French paradox to America in 1991, presenting the idea that the French eat rich food yet suffer less heart disease, with red wine floated as a possible reason.
Q 07In Sideways, Merlot-hating Miles drinks his prized 1961 bottle from which Bordeaux estate in a fast-food restaurant?
Château Cheval Blanc
Château Cheval Blanc 1961 is the wine Miles drinks from a disposable styrofoam cup at a fast-food restaurant, a Saint-Émilion blend built largely on the Merlot he scorns.
Q 08Which Médoc commune, with only 3,000 acres of vines, is home to three of Bordeaux's five first-growth châteaux?
Pauillac
Pauillac holds Lafite Rothschild, Latour and Mouton Rothschild, plus 15 other classified growths, squeezed between Saint-Julien to the south and Saint-Estèphe to the north.
Q 09Bordeaux's wine brokers ranked the châteaux of the 1855 classification chiefly by what, rather than by tasting?
Their trading price
Their trading price, together with each château's reputation, decided the 1855 list, which is why a 19th-century market snapshot still sets Bordeaux's pecking order.
Q 10Mouton Rothschild's 1973 label, the year of its promotion to first growth, honoured which artist, who died that April?
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso, who died on 8 April 1973, was honoured on that year's label; Baron Philippe de Rothschild had commissioned a different artist for every vintage since 1945.
Q 11Which diarist recorded tasting 'Ho Bryen' at a London tavern in 1663, the first estate-named Bordeaux in print?
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys wrote of drinking 'a sort of French wine called Ho Bryen that hath a good and most particular taste', Haut-Brion having been branded specifically for the English market.
Q 12Pomerol, whose Pétrus sells for first-growth prices, is the one major Bordeaux district without what?
An official ranking
An official ranking has never been drawn up for Pomerol, yet Pétrus and Le Pin sell for as much as the classified first growths of the Médoc and Saint-Émilion.
Q 13Traders from which country drained the swampy Médoc in the 17th century so its famous vineyards could be planted?
Q 21Chablis grows on Kimmeridge Clay, a Jurassic soil named after a village on the coast of which English county?
Dorset
Dorset's village of Kimmeridge gave the clay its name, and the same Upper Jurassic seam resurfaces across the Channel under the vines of Chablis and Sancerre.
Q 22Legend says Burgundy's Corton hill went over to white grapes because which emperor's wife hated red stains on his beard?
Charlemagne
Charlemagne's fourth wife, Luitgard, supposedly ordered the switch, and the white-wine slope still carries his name as Corton-Charlemagne, one of Burgundy's greatest Chardonnays.
Q 23A traditional kir adds crème de cassis to a white made from which Burgundy grape, Chardonnay's lesser-known neighbour?
Aligoté
Holland
Holland supplied the engineers: Dutch traders drained the Médoc's marshes, and the reclaimed land gradually surpassed the older districts as Bordeaux's most prestigious.
Q 14Whose 1152 marriage to Henry Plantagenet put Bordeaux's vineyards under English rule and launched the claret trade?
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor of Aquitaine brought Bordeaux as part of her lands, and demand for its wine in England soared once her husband became Henry II two years later.
Q 15Bordeaux's annual 'en primeur' campaign, held each spring after the harvest, sells the new vintage in what state?
Still ageing in the barrel
Still ageing in the barrel, the wine is bought as a future, often a year or more before bottling, which can make it cheaper than it will be on release.
Q 16Bordeaux mixture, the copper spray devised by botanist Millardet in the 1880s, was developed against which vine disease?
Downy mildew
Downy mildew, an American import, was the target: Millardet noticed roadside vines doused with copper and lime to stop passers-by eating the grapes stayed healthy while the rest of the vineyard sickened.
Q 17Burgundy's UNESCO-listed vineyard plots, each precisely delimited with its own microclimate and name, are called what?
Climats
Climats are the small parcels that differ in microclimate, geography and soil, and the whole mosaic joined the World Heritage List in 2015.
Q 18Romanée-Conti's 1945, its last pre-phylloxera vintage and a $558,000 bottle in 2018, ran to roughly how many bottles?
600
600 bottles were all the 1945 harvest yielded, a tenth of normal, which is why so many 'Romanée-Conti 1945' bottles traded since are assumed to be forgeries.
Q 19Monks of which order created Burgundy's walled Clos de Vougeot vineyard, from the 12th century onward?
Cistercians
Cistercians from Cîteaux Abbey, the order's mother house, assembled the Clos de Vougeot by purchase and donation over two centuries; today the 50-hectare walled vineyard is split among more than 80 owners.
Q 20Which Burgundy town's 15th-century charity hospital has auctioned its wines every November since 1859?
Beaune
Beaune's Hospices, founded for the poor in 1443 by chancellor Nicolas Rolin, sell their wines on the third Sunday of November amid a three-day feast called Les Trois Glorieuses.
Aligoté wine is the classic base of kir, known in French as vin blanc cassis, and the grape's own appellation is Bourgogne Aligoté.
Q 24Pouilly-Fuissé, often confused with the Loire's Pouilly-Fumé, is a Chardonnay from which subregion of Burgundy?
Mâconnais
Mâconnais is the southern, softer end of Burgundy, and Pouilly-Fuissé is its best-known appellation, spread over Fuissé, Solutré-Pouilly, Vergisson and Chaintré.
Q 25In Burgundy's four-tier hierarchy, which level sits above premier cru, despite the name suggesting premier is top?
Grand cru
Grand cru is the summit, reserved for a handful of the Côte d'Or's best sites, with premier cru, village and regional wines ranked beneath it in descending order.
Q 26Beaujolais's cru Moulin-à-Vent, renamed when it gained AOC status in 1936, takes its name from what local landmark?
A windmill
A windmill gives Moulin-à-Vent its name, and it is one of ten Beaujolais crus alongside villages such as Fleurie, Morgon and Brouilly.
Q 27Beaujolais's signature method ferments whole uncrushed grapes in a tank full of carbon dioxide; what is it called?
Carbonic maceration
Carbonic maceration starts fermentation inside each intact berry, giving fruity, low-tannin reds so quickly that Beaujolais nouveau can go from vine to bottle in under six weeks.
Q 28Champagne's vineyards sit on a subsoil of what, left behind when ancient seas receded 70 million years ago?
Chalk
Chalk underlies the whole region, and that unique chalky landscape shaped the caves and the agro-industrial system that made sparkling wine possible in the 17th century.
Q 29Châteauneuf-du-Pape's famously long list of permitted grapes, led by Grenache, traditionally runs to how many varieties?
13
13 varieties became the rule in 1936, up from ten, and the 2009 rewrite stretched the list to eighteen by counting white, pink and black versions of some grapes separately.
Q 30Côte-Rôtie's Syrah reds may be co-fermented with up to 20% of which white grape, added for its aroma?
Viognier
Viognier, the perfumed white of neighbouring Condrieu, must go into the vat at the same time as the Syrah under the appellation rules, a process known as cofermentation.