Faint shapes are broad/umbrella appellations (Bordeaux, Médoc, Graves…); solid shapes are the specific communal appellations. Dots are individually classified chateaux — bigger dot = higher tier. Cru Bourgeois is off by default (170 estates) to keep the map readable.
Bordeaux's ~44 currently-active AOCs are delimited by commune (municipality), not by fine parcel lines like the newer American AVA system. Each appellation's shape here is the union of its member communes' official boundaries (IGN/INSEE Admin Express, via the france-geojson open-data project, Licence Ouverte / Open License 2.0). Where an AOC covers only part of a commune, or a historic village has since merged into a larger administrative commune, the whole modern commune is shown and the discrepancy is noted on that appellation's panel — this is a known simplification, not a claim of parcel-level precision. "Bordeaux," "Bordeaux Supérieur," and the other fully department-wide labels are shown as the entire Gironde outline.
Older wine references sometimes cite 60-65 Bordeaux appellations, but that figure is mostly pre-2009 naming: several "Côtes de Bordeaux" satellites (Premières Côtes de Blaye, Premières Côtes de Bordeaux, Côtes de Castillon, Bordeaux-Côtes de Francs) were consolidated into unified names between 2008 and 2016, and a couple of very obscure "complément de nom" designations are functionally unused. This atlas maps the currently active set found via INAO cahiers des charges and the CIVB — 44 distinct, independently delimited zones, plus the umbrella "Côtes de Bordeaux" name itself (not separately mapped, since it isn't its own delimited zone).
Four historically distinct chateau-level classifications are layered on as dots, each compiled and cross-checked from public references (Wikipedia, trade press, official classification bodies): the 1855 Classification (Médoc reds + Sauternes-Barsac sweet whites — frozen since 1855 except Mouton Rothschild's 1973 promotion to Premier Cru), the Saint-Émilion Classification (revised periodically; this atlas uses the 2022 list, currently under legal challenge history but in force), the Graves Classification (1959, ~16 chateaux, all now in Pessac-Léognan), and Cru Bourgeois du Médoc (a much larger, since-2020 five-year-cycle re-certification; this atlas uses the 2025 list, valid through the 2027 vintage). Saint-Émilion chateaux are placed at the Saint-Émilion area's center rather than an exact address, since per-chateau commune data wasn't available at research time — treat those pin positions as approximate, not a precise location.
Each mapped appellation is tagged with its typical dominant grape variety/blend and a short, curated list of 2–5 well-documented, currently-operating producers — research compiled from public sources (INAO documents, wine-trade references, chateau/estate sites), not an official designation or an exhaustive directory. Several minor appellations genuinely have little public documentation; their producer list is intentionally short or empty rather than padded with invented names.