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"Welcome to Chateau Paloumey," says Martine Cazeneuve, owner and winemaker of this 22-hectare, award-winning, Bordeaux Supérieur property. Fashionably dressed and accessorized, Madame Cazeneuve greets me at the door with her public relations executive Barbara Engerer.

I am tasting my way through the Medoc, and am curious to visit this Chateau as it is one of several now run by a female winemaker. Madame Cazeneuve shows me around her property and explains that she bought it in 1990 when, due to negligence on the part of the elderly previous owners, not a vine was left.

Madame's vines are thriving now, and the vista of the vineyards just now being pruned from the elevated tasting room is gorgeous. As I taste her Chateau Paloumey 2003, I can't help but notice its fresh fruit flavors, especially red fruit such as strawberry and framboise, with a nice integration of oak. Also, I find it a distinctively 'feminine' wine, especially considering the region.

Many wines from the Medoc are quite masculine, with smokey notes, aggressive tannins, and aromas of tobacco and cigar box. Nodding in agreement, Madame explains her goal is to create a wine that has excellent balance and reveals the fruit of the region. "Not too strong," she says, "just elegant with finesse."

Madame is generous enough to invite me for lunch. We walk six feet across the gravely path that separates her chateau from her charming private living quarters, as elegant in decor as her winery. It's clear she takes pride in arranging important things in her life just so — her living space as well as her wine — and is a stickler for the smallest of details. This observation is also born out in her lunch.

The chicken we enjoy is no mere chicken, but a carefully roasted chicken fresh from the Pyrenees, where it is a delicacy and quite delicious. Salad, pumpkin soup, and a selection of three cheeses (a generous slab of Gouda, a tiny circle of Chevre, and a wedge of Saint Nectaire with a tan rind) rounded out the meal.

I really liked the wines of Chateau Paloumey, and sense that as good as they are now, they will only get better in time. The winery is quite modern. The casks in the aging room are housed in such a gorgeous cave it could almost be a Hollywood movie set.

Madame Cazeneuve is involved in many local events designed to raise the awareness of female winemakers and chefs. On my visit I realized that today, perhaps more than ever before, women are really thriving as the heads of wineries and the Bordeaux version of "celebrity chefs," a surprising number of whom are female. Viva la France.

For information on the wines, visit Chateau Paloumey and the official Bordeaux web site.

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