Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhÿne fight back

Despite its losing battle with the new world in the mass market, France is still dominant in the upper echelons of wine. The New France (the title of Andrew Jefford's award-winning reappraisal of the country's wines) does raise a big question. In the context of Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône, the traditional holy trinity of fine wine regions, is the "new France" tag a bit of spin or does it translate into improved reds that genuinely justify their high prices?

Modernism can be a two-edged épée. As winemakers, like gendarmes, get younger, their receptiveness to new influences has equipped them to challenge the status quo. Mindful of stiff new-world competition, there is a greater willingness to listen to us, the customer, and provide riper, more approachable wines. At the same time, tradition has its positive side: minimal chemical intervention in the vineyard. Given the ups and downs that come with a marginal climate, many of today's more switched-on growers are falling back on the best of traditional practices. How? Through attention to detail aimed at coaxing the most out of their patch of terrain.

It's an irony that just when Bordeaux is making a determined effort to raise its game, we as a wine-drinking nation are turning our backs on it. But the world's biggest fine wine region is now making some of the most sumptuous food-friendly reds as distinct from the cohorts of one-glass wonders that stalk the new world "fine wine" arena. With a little help from late harvesting, the 1999 Clos St-Martin, for instance, (£27.89, Corney & Barrow, 020-7265 2400), is a smart, modern, merlot-based claret with a luscious degree of fruit concentration. At petit château level too, there are an increasing number of good value up-and-coming clarets, like the modern, blackcurranty style of 2000 Château Lezongars, L'Enclos (£8.05-£9.95, Hayman Barwell Jones, 020-7922 1610; Handford, 020-7221 9614), owned by a British family appropriately called Iles.

Burgundy is a harder region to get a handle on. Limited availability and high prices tend to make it a rich man's playground. And the pinot noir grape is so tantalisingly fickle, a thrill when it works, frustrating when it doesn't, that you need endless patience and even more money to transcend the bewildering permutation of growers, négociants, vintages and appellations. The relative lack of new-world competition helps though, making it easier at least to succumb to the charms of juicy, modern styles of pinot noir: like the new micro-négociant Nicolas Potel's, perfumed, raspberryish 2000 Volnay 1er cru (£17.99, Marks & Spencer), an admirable example of a return to pure, fruit character and vineyard expression.

The increasing number of winemakers determined to work the vineyard and extract character from their vines makes the Rhône the most exciting of France's classic red wine regions. Gigondas, for instance, in the southern Rhône, shows how a single appellation can encompass a wide variety of styles. Epitomising the best of the modern, Louis Barruol's ultra-sleek 2001 Gigondas St Cosme, Valbelle (£24.95, Handford 020-7221 9614), made only in exceptional vintages, is a stunning blend of old vine grenache and syrah, full of spicy, blackberryish fruit richness and purity. It takes wines like these to show that the changing landscape of French wine is no figment of a wine writer's imagination, at least for wine drinkers prepared to put their hand in their pocket for individual character.