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Sud de France Master-LevelWebinar Program

Webinar 1:An Introduction to the Region and its History

See how 2,600 years of history have shaped the vineyards and wine industry of the LR today

Discover hat aspects of this colorful history have influenced the wine world as a whole.

Learning Objectives

The Early Years

Greeks

600 BC 500 BC 200 BC – 476 AD

Celts Romans

VIA DOMITIA

The Monastic influence (from the 6th century AD )

Abbaye de ValmagneThe nave with large wine barrels in

the side aisles

Abbaye de Fontfroide

Charles martel & the battle of poitiers

Charles Martel 688-741 AD

The Battle of Poitiers (732)

Pepin le bref : Pepin the ShortPepin the Short, son of Charles Martel, father of Charlemagne, contined his father’s work.Moved south through Rhône and Languedoc. 752 : Nîmes and Béziers759 : Narbonne760 : Roussillon

Occitania

TroubadourMédiéval Occitan

The Cathars

Christain sect2 main beliefs…Spirtual = god, material = badPeaceful people yet beliefs competely opposed to Catholic church.Brutal crusades of 13c wiped outLegacy and stories live on

CATHARS

Counts and kings

Charlemagne and the Saxons

Aragon Crest

Arnaud de Villeneuve

(1285)

Discovery of sparkling wine (1531)

Dom Pérignon Abbaye of Saint Hilaire

The thirty years war

1659: Roussillon becomes French

Canal du Midi

Canal du Midi: 1681

The railway system

Paris- Lyon -Marseille : 1855

The GOLDEN AGE of Wine

Early 19th Century. Rise of Bordeaux and Burgundy

Emerging bourgeoisie

Increasing wine consumption

Languedoc-Roussillon quadrupled vineyard size in 25 years.

Phylloxera (1870s)

Narbonne Riot 1907

Riots of 1907 in Narbonne

Creation of AOC system

Riots caused a seismic change.

Prototype of AOC in Chateauneuf in 1923

Adopted 1936 with 4 in LR

The emergence of Co-ops

Cave Co-op of Maraussan,

the 1st Co-op in France

Co-ops in the Languedoc in the 1950’s accounted for over 90% of the total wine produced in the region.

THE NEW WAY: VdPIntroduced in 1983Vins de Pays d’Oc: 1987

2000 to now

Quantity to Quality

location