History of French Wine - Early History

Early History

See also: Ancient Greece and wine and Ancient Rome and wine

There is archaeological evidence to suggest that the Celts first cultivated the grape vine, Vitis vinifera, in Gaul. Grape pips have been found throughout France, pre-dating Greek and Roman cultural influences, with some examples found near Lake Geneva being over 12,000 years old. A major turning-point in the wine history of Gaul came with the founding of Massalia in the 6th century BC by Greek immigrants from Phocae in Asia Minor. By the 2nd century BC, Massalia (by then known as Massilia) came under Roman influence as a vital port on the trade route linking Rome to Roman settlements at Saguntum (near what is now modern Valencia in Spain). Roman presence and influence in Massilia grew as the settlement came under attack from a succession of forces including the Ligurians, Allobroges and Arverni. Eventually the area became a Roman province first known as Provincia and later Gallia Narbonensis.

The early Greek settlers brought a distinctly Mediterranean outlook to viticulture in Gaul. To their understanding, vines grew best in the same climate and area that would support olive and fig trees, therefore most of the early vineyard planting was in the warm, Mediterranean coastal areas. In 7 BC, the Greek geographer Strabo noted that the areas around Massilia and Narbo could produce the same fruits as Italy but the rest of Gaul further north could not support the olive, fig or vine. Under Roman rule, in the century and a half BC, the majority of the wine consumed in the area was required by law to be Italian in origin, as the distribution of fragments of wine amphorae found throughout Gaul after about 100 BC, especially along the coasts and rivers, suggests: some of the earliest amphorae, from the 2nd century BC, bear Iberian shipper's marks, indicating that distribution of wine predated conquest. It wasn't till the first century AD that there was record of Gaul's wine being of any note or renown. In his Natural History (book xiv), Pliny the Elder noted that in the region near Vienna (modern day Vienne in the Rhone wine region), the Allobroges produced a resinated wine that was held in esteem and commanded a high market price.

It was also during the late first century BC/early first century AD that viticulture started to spread to other areas of Gaul — beyond areas where the olive and fig would grow, where a suitable variety was found to be the biturica, the ancestor of cabernet varieties. The high demand for wine and the cost of transport from Rome or Massilia were likely motivators for this spread. Archaeological evidence dating to the reign of Augustus suggests that large numbers of amphorae were being produced near Bézier in the Narbonensis and in the Gaillac region of Southwest France. In both these areas, the presence of the evergreen holm oak, Quercus ilex, which also grows in the familiar Mediterranean climate served as a benchmark indicating an area where the climate was warm enough to ensure a reliable harvest each year.

Expansion continued into the third century AD, pushing the borders of viticulture beyond the areas of the holm oak to places such as Bordeaux in Aquitania and Burgundy, where the more marginal climate included wet, cold summers that might not produce a harvest each year. But even with the risk of an occasional lost harvest, the continuing demand for wine among the Roman and native inhabitants of Gaul made the proposition of viticulture a lucrative endeavor. By the 6th century AD, vines were planted throughout Gaul including the Loire Valley, the Île-de-France (Paris Basin) which included the areas of modern day Champagne, as well as Brittany.

The decline of the Roman Empire brought sweeping changes to Gaul, as the region was invaded by Germanic tribes from the north including the Visigoths, Burgundians and the Franks, none of whom were familiar with wine. The invaders set up kingdoms in Aquitaine, Burgundy and Île-de-France. By the time that Charlemagne established his kingdom in the late 8th century, power in France was polarised between south and north: unlike the Mediterranean south, where grapes were easy to cultivate and wine was plentiful, the more viticulturally challenged regions of the north saw wine as a luxury item and a symbol of status. The influence of the Christian Church (which had been largely permeated throughout the region since the 6th century) also enhanced the image of wine in France as it became an integral part of the sacrament of the Eucharist, though the discovery of a second-third century silver wine dipper as part of temple votive deposit at Pont-de-Leyris reminds us that wine was an integral part of pagan rites as well.