MUSCAT DE VENISE APPELLATION WINE
The vineyard spreads out on the hundred-old terraces which were long before planted mainly with olive trees. Today, vines and olive trees harmoniously share the countryside.
Historical Background
Before the first century of our era
When in the Vth century BC, Greek colons from Asia Minor discovered our area in the south of France, they settled down and created trading posts going up the Rhone River, thereby establishing flourishing businesses in sectors favourable to exchanges. Hence, at the foot of the Dentelles de Montmirail Massif, they chose the site of Beaumes de Venise to set up a trading post. These traders implanted the farming of vineyards and olive trees. That is how our “Muscat wine” was born.
Following the Celtic Invasion, massive destruction was undertaken, but the vineyard survived on several hillsides.
The XIXth Century
After Pliny the Elder, Saint Louis, the Popes, Marguerite des Baux or Aztorg-de-Peyre, the farming of the Muscat grape didn’t really develop until the end of the XIXth century. It was necessary to wait half a century more, under the impulse of Mr. Louis CASTAUD, for an INAO decree fixing the rules of production in 1943. This decree is still in force today.
In 1956, Pierre Blachon, at the time the village chemist, persuaded the wine growers to create a co-operative wine cellar in order to control production, commercialization along with vinification. The first year, only 50 hectolitres were vinified.
Today
With nearly 14,000 hectolitres, we control the production to preserve the quality which guarantees our international reputation at the highest level.
THE APPELLATION
Since 1943, the only wine entitled to the Beaumes de Venise Muscat appellation, are the wines coming from the small grained white and black Muscat grape varieties, picked on a delimited area between the communities of Beaumes de Venise and Aubignan.
Respecting specific conditions of production (type of pruning, yield, natural richness in sugar and must, …) these make for a wine of exception.
The wine producers of Beaumes de Venise are the only ones to grow this grape variety in the Rhone Valley.
- Production : 13,000 hectolitres
- Surface : 500 hectares
- Type of Soil : clayish-limestone and Miocene sand
- Grape Variety : small grained Muscat
- Authorized Yield : 30 hectolitres per hectare
- Terroir : Miocene Safre called blond earth
The dominating terroir of the Muscat grape is deeply anchored into the history of Beaumes de Venise. The peasant, separating the earth from rocks, “restanques” also called “faysses” , built walls with the dry stones, striating the hillsides to facilitate work and optimize the exposure of the vines. The “faysses” became terraces, and the Muscat terroir settled mainly on sandy soils without stones, coming from the Helvetian safre (middle Miocene) dating from at least 14 million years ago.