BORDEAUX

BURGUNDY / RHONE

CHAMPAGNE

Jeroboam / Rehoboam
Jeroboam II was King of Israel during the traditional year of Rome's founding (753 BC) and as the Greeks were emerging from the Dark Age that separated Homer from the Parthenon. A son of Solomon, Rehoboam became King of Judah in 933 BC.

Methuselah
Methuselah was an antediluvian patriarch described in the Old Testament as having lived 969 years and whose name is synonymous with great age. He may well have evolved from a character of earlier Sumerian legend who lived for 65,000 years. To the Old Testament scribes this was perhaps too tall a tale, so they may have cut him back to a more conservative lifespan.

Salmanazar
Derived from Shalmaneser, an Assyrian monarch who reigned around 1250 BC, just about the time the science of iron smelting was first imported into his kingdom from Anatolia.

Balthazar
Balthazar ("King of Treasures") is the traditional name of one of the Three Wise Men, the other two being Melchior ("King of Light") and Gaspar ("The White One"). Many scholars nowadays tend to characterize the trio not as kings, but rather as Zoroastrian priests, while others speculate that at least one of them was a king - namely Azes II of Bactria who reigned from 35 BC to 10 AD. Whatever their occupations, legend has it that the Three Wise Men, or at the very least their skulls, lie buried in a golden shrine at Cologne Cathedral.

Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar, originally nabu-kudurri-usur meaning "Nabu protect the boundary", became King of the Chaldean Empire in 604 BC. He was actually the second Nebuchadnezzar; a less celebrated Nebuchadnezzar I preceded him by 500 years.