Quai des Chartrons

The Quai des Chartrons is defined by its long, unbroken line of grand eighteenth-century stone facades facing the Garonne River. These buildings, with their wide, arched doorways designed to accommodate the movement of heavy wine barrels, tell the story of the merchants who shaped this district. Beginning in the seventeenth century, foreign traders from England, Ireland, and the Netherlands settled here because the law forced them to live outside the city walls. They established a powerful enclave known as the aristocracy of the cork, building a massive international wine trade that transformed Bordeaux into one of Europe’s busiest ports.