(Christies) - Of the great winemaking countries there is none whose name and history is so closely associated with wine and the art of creating ‘bottled poetry’. France’s history with wine dates back to before antiquity. Wine then, as now, was produced as a luxury beverage and one vital to the regional economy and religion. Over millennia the people of France revealed the ‘art and passion’ of making great wine to the world, so much so it could be argued that their very identity and national consciousness is intertwined with the vine and its life-affirming produce.