I’ve often wondered what Australia would today be like if the Comte de Lapérouse had landed at Botany Bay a few days earlier. He got there on 24 January 1788, six days after Commodore Arthur Phillip had arrived. If the French had settled first would we nowadays have 96 departments instead of six states and two territories? Would Fords and Holdens be all Renaults and Citroens? Fish and chips shops all boulangeries? And how much older and longer-practised – and more expanded – might our vineyards be?

I think of this when I think of the Bordeaux of the south: Margaret...