Collioure AOC - History

History

Viticulture was likely introduced to the area soon after the ancient Greeks introduced winemaking to the Languedoc are in the 6th century BC. Under the Romans, viticulture spread throughout the area with the nearby cities of Narbonne, Carcassonne and Perpignan being major centers for the trade of Roussillon wine from areas like Collioure. For a large part of its history, the region has been under Spanish rule and was even a part of the Catalonia region until the mid-17th century. Like other Roussillon wine regions, this Spanish influence can be seen in the types of wines produced here. Even today, wine experts such as Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson describe the wines of Collioure as being more like Spanish wines in profile than French.

The history of the Collioure region has been closely linked to the wines of Banyuls. For several centuries, grapes produced in this region was used to produced the fortified wine that gained an international reputation. It wasn't until 1971 that the region gained it own identity with an AOC established for production of non-fortified red wines.