The vineyard of the “Île-de-France” is in full renaissance. And now recognized in IGP since the harvest 2020. An unexpected rebirth and long-awaited recognition.
Life, death and rebirth of old French vineyards: brief history
Like the great vineyards of Burgundy, of Champagne, of Bordeaux, of the Loire or of the Rhône Valley, the Île-de-France has carried in the past one of the most important vineyards in France.
It is a forgotten reality, like many other vineyards of France today disappeared, the vineyard of Île-de-France has long been a renowned wine land.
The first vines were planted in Lutèce – Lutetia, Roman name of Paris at this time – in 276. The vine acclimatized very well to the Parisian climate and the wines produced at the time were of good quality. In 357, Emperor Julien himself praised the wine produced on the hill of Montmartre. Lutetia became one of the most important wine regions of Romanized Gaul.
It is in the Middle Ages that the cultivation of the vine in Paris knows its true rise thanks to the work of the monks. Three abbeys are at the head of the main vineyards: Saint-Denis, Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Montmartre.
Wine is a significant source of income for Bishops and Princes. The Paris region then became the largest vineyard in Europe.
The very old and great vineyard of Argenteuil (see the map below) – where the brand-new Domaine du Bois Brillant is located – produced excellent wines that had the favor of the kings of France. Parisian viticulture favoured the grape varieties of the Pinot family, such as Fromenteau and Morillon, which gave the best wines in this climate.
Thanks to an edict issued by Saint Louis, King of France, prohibiting taverns from selling wine produced in the capital, the wine exports developed in the 13th century. Renowned for its good quality, Paris wine is transported to other regions of France and even in northern Europe.
The 47 Parishes of Paris’s vineyard having harvested more than 500 “muids” (1340 hl) of wine at the harvest of 1788 .
- One Parisian “muid” = 268 liters
- In DION Roger, History of the vine and wine in France from the origins to the nineteenth century, Paris, Flammarion, 1959. Unfortunately, not yet translated into English or Thai.
- « The history of agriculture has never kept us, at any time and for any other cultivated plant, the memory of a crisis as serious as that crossed by the vines of the old continent when they were invaded by the phylloxera. » Gustave Foëx, French ampelographer, 1900.
The Parisian vineyard then reached its peak. It occupies 42,000 hectares and concerns more than 300 municipalities in the region. Its development is correlated with the development of the Parisian urban population.
On the eve of the French Revolution (1789), Argenteuil harvested more than 5,000 muids, or more than 1,340,000 litres. Nearly a million and a half liters.
In the middle of the 19th century, on the eve of the arrival of mildew and then of phylloxera (1863), it occupied 52,000 ha.
| Au sein de la paix, goûter le plaisir Chez soi, s’amuser dans un doux loisir Ou bien chez Magny s’aller divertir C’était la vieille méthode L’on voit aujourd’hui courir nos Badaux; Sans les achever quitter leurs travaux. Pourquoi? C’est qu’ils vont chez Mons Ramponaux Voilà la Taverne à la mode. | In the bosom of peace, taste the pleasureAt home, enjoying sweet leisureOr go to Magny to be entertainedThat was the old way Today we see our dandies running;Without finishing their workWhy? They go to Mons RamponauxThat’s the fashionable tavern. |
“Au Tambour royal”, “At the Royal Drum”, a famous Parisian cabaret in fashion, in 1773, property of Jean Ramponaux. Court people rub shoulders with the people. 600 people could sit for lunch or dinner.
Four main reasons explain its disappearance.
However, in the mid-19th century, the great story came to an end. With the scourge of mildew and oidium, and, above all, the dramatic Phylloxera Disaster – a small aphid imported from North America to France in 1863, responsible for the devastating destruction of almost the entire European vineyard and which has now colonized almost every vineyard in the world – caused the disappearance of grape varieties and ancestral vineyards.
We will never know what the taste of pre-phylloxera wines was : ((
But even before this tragedy, the degradation of the vineyards of the Paris wine-growing area in the 17th and 18th centuries, their depreciation to the detriment of quality, made them gradually decline against the other wine-growing regions of France.
The rise of the railway which suddenly made more accessible the wines of Languedoc and the Rhone valley, then the ravages of the “Great War”, World War 1, led to the almost total disappearance of the “Ile de France” vineyard.
As the region became increasingly urbanized, the vines, almost wiped out, were not replanted. They give way to cereals, vegetables and apple trees.
♦
The rebirth of a vineyard, the birth of an Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC).
♣
History repeats itself
Since then, nothing, or little. The exception is a vineyard in Suresnes, 12 km west of Paris, the only one authorized to market its bottles. Its production varies between 35 and 60 hectoliters depending on the year. The remainder of the vineyards, around 150 plots, are the fruit of private initiatives, associations or local authorities, whose “vin franc” cannot be legally marketed.
But history could repeat itself. Today, a century and a half later after their virtual disappearance, the wines of Île-de-France are reborn through an IGP, the IGP “Ile-de-France”.
In 1999, wine, vine and French lifestyle enthusiasts men and women decided to work on the revival of professional viticulture in Île-de-France.
On May 19, 2020, the INAO (National Institute of Origin and Quality) accepted the approval of the specifications of the IGP.
After twenty-one years of work for the revalorization of the Île-de-France vineyard, winemakers located in the Paris basin can use the mention IGP Île-de-France since the 2020 harvest. It is the result of many years of work for the revival of what was once the “first vineyard in France”.
The territory of the IGP Île-de-France has about forty professional farms, for a hundred hectares planted or in the process of planting. And the pace is accelerating. For the climatic reasons we know.
Reinventing the sector
La Winerie Parisienne, a company which, since 2015, has been the first urban winery to be set up in Paris since 1970, embarks on the adventure.
Initially vinifying wine from wine-producing regions such as Bordeaux and the Rhône, the company, in 2017, acquired 26 hectares in Davron, in the territory of the Île-de-France IGP, part of which was harvested in 2023. With an initial production target of 10,000 bottles for this first vintage, the company is aiming to eventually produce 150,000 bottles.
According to the founders, the aim is not just to produce wine. They are considering the creation of an entire sector.
Since 2016, European regulations have introduced a new planting authorization regime. A liberalization of the right to plant vines, in short. In practice, each year, France will grant new planting authorizations corresponding to a maximum of 1% of the total national area planted with vines.
For the region, the benefits are multiple. The revival of a wine-growing industry could also have an important role in the tourism industry. While it seeks to get foreign tourists out of the capital for the benefit of the inner suburbs of the Ile-de-France region – the vast majority of tourists visiting the small and large suburbs are French – wine tourism could help it do so.
According to the Ministry of Tourism, wine tourism attracts both French (58%) and foreign visitors (42%). It is also for this last clientele that the increase in attendance is the most spectacular: +40% since 2009, against +29% for the French clientele.
In 2016, these tourists were 10 million. If today, the vineyards of Bordeaux, Burgundy or Champagne represent half of the tourist attendance, it could well be that one day, the Ile-de-France is on the wine roads map.
As you can see, everything suggests that the vineyard will expand. With the global warming, the border of the northern European limit of the vine is moving at high speed.
If warming continues at this rate, it is expected that the North African climate will reach the Loire in 2050.
For the same reason, Moët & Chandon acquired land in England to plant vineyards. And Sweden planted its first vineyard two years ago.
And everything suggests that we’re only at the beginning of what promises to be a gigantic upheaval in terms of climate, geography and, consequently, of agriculture and viticulture.
The IGP Île-de-France : specifics
A current area of 100 hectares that extends at high speed.
In order to claim the IGP Île-de-France, Ile-de-France winegrowers must respect specific specifications:
- use fungus-resistant vines, which are already used in Germany for around twenty years. They are more resistant to bad weather, more resistant to fungi and therefore require less cryptogamic treatment.
- commit not to produce sparkling wine.
- IGP IDF wines must also respect defined taste qualities linked to the region’s soil and climate.
The IGP Île-de-France has five DGC – Dénominations Géographiques Complémentaires -, Complementary geographical names :
- Paris – with Le Clos Montmartre, that we have presented to you
- Les Coteaux de Suresnes Monts Valérien – with Le Clos du Pas Saint-Maurice
- Les Coteaux de Provins –
- Guérard – with the Domain Les Coteaux du Montguichet where we took you too.
- Les coteaux de Blunay – with the Domain Magalyval,
which we present to you now.
I – Domaine Magalyval – DGC Coteaux de Blunay rouge – IGP Ile-de-France
Domaine Magalyval Coteaux de Blunay – Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
Jean-Michel Bourgoin started the operation of a vineyard of just over 1 hectare in Blunay, a municipality of Melz-sur-Seine in 2017. The adventure is family since he inherited his father’s land. As a memory of his childhood that he wishes to transmit today to his daughters, the first harvests took place in 2020. The Domaine Magalyval (contraction of the first syllables of the names of his two daughters, Magaly and Valérie) produces Red, White and Rosé wines. Four grape varieties come to life on these lands: Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Viognier and Gamay.
II – Le Clos du Pas Saint-Maurice, coteaux de Suresnes, Hauts-de-Seine
Dozens of vines stuck between buildings and pavilions on the edge of a suburban avenue. An error of nature? No, a witness of the past, a vestige of Suresnes’ winegrowing history. Welcome to the Clos du pas Saint-Maurice, the largest vineyard in Ile-de-France, replanted in 1965.
Four thousand eight hundred vines cling to the hillside on this protected plot of almost one hectare. It’s like being in the heart of a Bordeaux vineyard, but with a view of the Eiffel Tower. The estate’s cellars produce an average of five thousand bottles of white wine a year. From harvesting to bottling, everything is done on site using traditional methods. There are no barrels here; the wine is aged in three vats. To be consumed in moderation… Beware of its thirteen degrees!
Oldest professional vineyard in the Ile-de-France region, Les Coteaux de Suresnes-Mont-Valérien is one of the five Dénominations Géographiques Complémentaires (DGC) of the IGP Île-de-France. Oldest professional wine in the Paris region, the Domaine, lovingly cultivated by Antoine de Clermont Tonnerre, played a pioneering role in the renaissance of the Île-de-France vineyards.
The 5000 bottles of white wine he draws from his Clos du Pas Saint-Maurice are unanimously appreciated. And highly sought-after.
Winner of the contest of the best wines of Île-de-France in 2018, their white wine is distributed on the markets, among the wine merchants and has been invited to the menu of some great starred restaurants.
♦
On the occasion of the second edition of the Concours des Vins d’Île-de-France in 2023, its white cuvée of Coteaux de Suresnes 2020 has pleasantly surprised. “The fresh, straight and stretched side dedicates it to an aperitif, or to the beginning of a meal. It is not at the level of a good Muscadet or a good Chablis, but it is very interesting, because these are wines that we do not know, elaborated in terroirs that are unknown to us”.
III – Le Domaine de Beau Tilleul
It is above all the story of Agathe Maury, 42, a former wine merchant who launched into the creation of his own vineyard. The south-facing estate extends over 2 hectares of land nestled at the exit of the village of Beautheil on a terroir composed of land, clay and pebbles, conducive to the production of Pinot Noir.
Agathe Maury plans to plant one hectare of red planted in Pinot Noir and one hectare of white including 60 ares of Chardonnay and 40 ares of Chenin. The first bottles of Brie wine will even have the right to the denomination: «IGP île de France» (Protected Geographical Indication, formerly Vin de Pays) in white, red and rosé wine and can be tasted from 2025.
IV – Le Clos de Nonville, 90 km from Paris Notre-Dame
Market gardening & vineyard IGP Ile-de-France in organic farming, forest promoting biodiversity, hives and truffle oaks… The Clos de Nonville near Nemours is one of those exceptional places where collaborations with local farmers are required to promote short-circuit supplies. And if for the moment, their production is intended essentially for the gastronomic restaurant Bellefeuille of the hotel Saint-James-Paris in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the field is gradually settling in the landscape.
On the wine side, 7 hectares divided between Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Pinot Noir were planted. The first harvest should take place in autumn 2022. Beautiful flavors in perspective!
You will understand, it is already possible to drink (in moderation) Seine-et-Marnais wine. But for most of the estates, it is sometimes still necessary to be patient before going to harvest the vines of Seine-et-Marne. Fortunately, the associations that have at heart to preserve this wine tradition on the territory invite us as often as possible to taste their small local productions. An intimate experience to those who know how to find it.
♦
As you can guess, it is still too early to define a style of wines of the IGP Île-de-France because of the multiplicity of grape varieties and terroirs and the too recent establishment of vineyards. The winemakers are still in the experimental phase, even though they are professionalizing themselves.
The area of vines planted in Île de France is currently around 100 ha. But grape plantations are well underway. Another 200 hectares are planned to be planted over the next ten years.
Soon a Grand Cru in Grand Paris? No one doubts it.
