Bordeaux: Where Irish fans will find familiar pub names and surnames

Bordeaux has been accommodating Irish fans for several hundred years, and if you want the evidence, check out the Irish names on wine bottles at its latest visitor attraction, Bordeaux Grand Vins experience: Lynch, Kirwan, Barton, right down to Lochlann Quinn of Château de Fieuzal.

Most of us think of a wine rather than a city when we hear the word Bordeaux, and with good reason. The region has 6,000 cheateaux and 57 appellations.

Most of these châteaux are open for visitors, which means you can set out every morning and find somewhere interesting to drink, lunch, and discuss Martin O’Neill’s options for Saturday’s Group E clash with Belgium, Cristiano Ronaldo’s latest strop and the lingering injustice of how France failed to win the 1982 World Cup, with three locals in the lineup.