(WP) - For centuries, Bordeaux was at the center of the world’s trade in wine. Its access to sea routes helped make claret the favorite wine of the British Empire, which in turn spread Bordeaux’s fame far and wide. That dominance has evaporated over the past four decades as a technological revolution in viticulture shattered Bordeaux’s monopoly on quality, creating challengers in California, Argentina, Australia and South Africa. Globalization helped those upstart wine regions compete directly with Bordeaux in markets around the world.

Bordeaux remains relevant, of course. It’s the model for “Bordeaux blends,” red wines made from any combination of the traditional grapes: cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, malbec and petit verdot. Only slowly are vintners elsewhere challenging the Bordeaux paradigm by blending in other grapes.

During a week-long immersion in Bordeaux for this month’s Vinexpo trade fair, I sensed both an urgency to get beyond the image of “Bored-oh” in markets such as the United States and a growing confidence that the region has begun emerging from its malaise, with bright days ahead.

“The U.S. in 40 years has become the number four producer of wine in the world, and the number one consumer,” Xavier de Eizaguirre, Vinexpo’s president, told me during an opening dinner at Château Smith Haut Lafitte. (He was evidently practicing his speech for the next morning’s press conference with French President François Hollande.) Yet U.S. consumption per capita still lags far behind that in France, Spain and Italy, leaving much room for the U.S. market to grow, he said.

Eizaguirre acknowledged that the Bordelais “forgot our traditional markets,” including the United States, with the China boom of the last decade, which fueled a sharp price increase in the most prestigious wines.

So to remind Americans of their importance, Vinexpo declared the United States its first “country of honor.” It was both a sign of the U.S. market’s significance to Bordeaux and a recognition of U.S. power in the global drinks business. California’s Wine Institute and the Napa Valley Vintners Association were prominently featured at the center of the 13-acre exhibition hall, and Wine Spectator magazine hosted a tasting highlighting companies that produce wine in the United States and other countries. One of those companies was Italy’s Zonin 1821, which featured two Bordeaux blends: one from Rocca di Montemassi in Tuscany, the other from Virginia’s Barboursville Vineyards. It might have been the first time a Virginia wine was featured at Vinexpo since the fair began, in the early 1990s.