Wine
Winemaking was probably introduced into Rhone valley by Greek colonists around 600 BC. Archaeological excavations carried out at La Ramière suggests that wine, or possibly olive oil, was being produced at the site in the second half of the 1st century AD. The earliest written mention of viticulture in Roquemaure is by Gervase of Tilbury in his Otia Imperialia which was completed around 1214:
In the Rhone stands the castle of Roquemaure. They judge that the castle itself belongs to the empire, which has rights over the river, while its estate belongs to the kingdom of France, which owns the land-rights. On the estate of this castle there are vines which the people call brumestae, producing good fat grapes. These vines flower and produce clusters of grapes as ordinary vines do, but then they cheat their husbandman's expectation: for when it comes to the feast of St John the Baptist, all the fruit vanishes, and nothing which might have grown into fruit is found on them.
This is description of a vine disorder called coulure in which the flowers fail to set.
Roquemaure introduced commercial protection of its wine, the Côtes du Rhône AOC, by stamping 'CDR' on the barrels. The accompanying rules became the basis of the regulations for today's AOC - appellation d'origine contrôlée.
Read more about this topic: Roquemaure, Gard
Famous quotes containing the word wine:
“The men who think of superannuation at sixty-one are those whose lives have been idle, not they who have really buckled themselves to work. It is my opinion that nothing seasons the mind for endurance like hard work. Port wine should perhaps be added.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“when wine redeems the sight,
Narrowing the mustard scansions of the eyes,”
—Hart Crane (1899–1932)
“I begin to find out that nothing but virtue will do in this damned world. I am tolerably sick of vice which I have tried in its agreeable varieties, and mean on my return to cut all my dissolute acquaintance and leave off wine and “carnal company,” and betake myself to politics and Decorum.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)