In the aftermath of the 1914-18 war, families and assets were scattered. Wine sales were down and small-scale winegrowers were buying tiny plots of vines. Ownership came very much to the fore and many of today’s big wine estates were established in the years between 1920 and 1930.  In 1919, the classification of the appellations became official, but it wasn’t until 1936 that the first AOCs were really born with Morey Saint-Denis leading the way. The aim was to confront the crisis by returning confidence to the consumer. In 1925, the Bourgogne winegrowers created the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin brotherhood, in charge of promoting the region’s wines. On 22 January 1938, they organized the first Saint-Vincent Tournante festival in Chambolle-Musigny. Then in 1950, they launched the “Tastevinage” at the Château du Clos de Vougeot: a large-scale tasting of all the region’s wines, to choose those which will be served at the brotherhood’s meetings.

BIVBIn the 1920s and 1930s, the cooperatives were the region’s answer to the global economic downturn. They were mainly established in the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais, and included the Cave des Hautes-Côtes in the Côte de Beaune and the Chablisienne in Chablis. Towards the end of the 1930s, and as a result of the recession, direct sales enjoyed significant growth and gave rise to wines bearing the name of the estate where they were produced.  In the 1960s, the first winemakers’ unions were created, which would ultimately become the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) in 1989. The recognition of the AOC Crémant de Bourgogne in 1975 caused genuine excitement in the area, and in 1995, the Institut Universitaire Jules Guyot de la Vigne et du Vin wine school was inaugurated in Dijon.

About photo: The work of the winery: reassembling the red wine. This is a technique to extract the material my pumping the juices that are at the bottom of the tank and spraying the mark hat that forms at the top of the tank.

Source: BIVB

Photo Credit: BIVB

Photographer:Aurelien Ibanez