By its geographical location, the region of Saint Emilion has the temperate oceanic climate of Bordeaux.
This climate is characterized by moderate temperature differences between summer and winter, an average going around 12.8 ° C, precipitation well distributed throughout the year.
From April to October, the global climate balance is excellent for vines with usually hot summers and beautiful back seasons with the more continental climate of Bordeaux (and therefore the hottest) and the protection of the Dordogne and the Isle Saint-Emilion has a lower risk of frost and Indian summers for good ripening of the grapes.

FOUNDATION OF SAINT-EMILION, the religious city

A monk born in Vannes in Lower Brittany, came to ask Benedictine hospitality to set up on this hill. Million, or Aemilianus Aemilianus was a "wandering confessor" who traveled the roads in the sixth century to convert the heathen and alleviate poverty, an aura of virtue and of evangelical charity. He knew how to gather around him a large number of companions living under the rule of St. Benedict. The multiplicity of natural caves gave shelter and one of them served their church, creating the first village of Saint-Emilion. The first monolithic church enlarged to accommodate the religious and laity, was completed in the eleventh century and long known as "Old Moustier". It is likely that this underground church was intended to preserve worthily the body of a saint.

The early twelfth century was conducive to a new era for the construction of religious buildings in neighboring parishes. In this general movement, the canons of Saint-Emilion built a new convent and chapel on the plateau above the monolithic church. It was called the "Nine Moustier".

Many historians and scholars have studied the construction of this building where there are traces of the construction of the second quarter of the twelfth century at the eastern end of the nave. It is difficult to imagine how this building arose because of the various modifications made over the centuries.


During the thirteenth century the building was substantially revised: removal of eastern walls of the transept, and expansion of three bays, formed a "great room" divided by two middle piles. The axis of the nave was closed by a flat apse chancel.

In the early fourteenth century, Bertrand de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux, became pope in 1305 under the name of Clement V, secularized the canons given by a bubble in Avignon December 13, 1309. The community was built in chapter includes twelve canons. The first dean, Gaillard de Lamothe-Preyssac, nephew of Pope took part in the procession of cardinals in 1316 as the Cardinal of St. Luce.


Prominent figures succeeded him as John I of Epernay, who died in 1509, John III of God-Aid or Dieuzaide (1520-1526) who called himself Sieur and noble lord of the house and tower Needle, Jacques, and Arnaud de Pontac (1536-1580), lords of Haut-Brion and Bisqueytan, the second appointed Bishop of Bazas in 1590, Francois and Henri de Sourdis Escoubleau (1610, 1630), both archbishops of Bordeaux Louis Bassompierre, Bishop of Saintes in 1629; Deseze, appointed bishop of Orense (Spain) in 1677, Jean-Baptiste de Reims (1657), André de Marillac, a doctor of Sorbonne to 1672, Jean de Campgrand, the Diocese of Lescards, doctor of Sorbonne, canon of saints, appointed by the King October 25, 1681, Charles de Bernada (around 1686, died 1702) or Charles Dussault Sault to 1703, Count Franz Joseph, Cistercian, Abbot of Make and Dean of St. Andrew, Jean-Jacques Dussault and the Sault, the last named dean about 1774 until 1789, was vicar general of Sarlat and Abbe Terrasson.

The appearance of a vine of grapes in the Bordeaux region dates back to 50. It is a Celtic tribe called "Bituriges Vivisques" who planted their own vineyard with the "Biturica" grape variety ancestor of Cabernet grapes.

It is thanks to the Romans as wine consumption increases and the end of the first century, Bordeaux became the capital of Aquitaine.


But the various invasions (Vandals, Visigoths and Swabians) do not favor the development of the vine, it is through religion that the wine founds his salvation. It is necessary to say mass, and therefore passes under religious control (the wine is a symbol). But the collapse of the Roman Empire leads to a decline in the wine trade and for eight centuries, Bordeaux is idle.
In 1152, the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry Plantagenet, future King of England, will naturally promote the growth of trade in Bordeaux wines. At that time, the British export of foodstuffs, textiles and metals and import of Bordeaux wines they call "Claret" because of its light color.
In 1453, the French defeated the English at the Battle of Castillon, Gironde leaves the dominance of English. Exports to England but still appear as new merchants Dutch, Hanseatic, the Bretons. With these new customers, changing habits, tastes are different. They like strong reds and blacks as well as dry and sweet white wines, is the birth of Sauternes, the St Croix du Mont etc..
It is from this time that we begin to acquire more modern methods of vinification, livestock and storage. Appearance of suffering for hygiene, bonding for the clarification, oak barrels for better conservation and the bottle. Were the 1st metal, porcelain and glass and finally at the end of the seventeenth century.

The appearance of the closed bottle is very important to the wines of Bordeaux because it will allow through its keeping qualities of the product, find new markets like the Americas, the West Indies or the Caribbean.

Bordeaux is going through an extraordinary prosperity until the Revolution.
The Napoleonic Wars will bring down the wine trade in Bordeaux. It was not until 1860 that markets return and that Bordeaux wines are flooding Europe.

But that date is also the appearance of a terrible disease that has struck the vineyards of Bordeaux "phylloxera". Imported from the Americas, is a small parasite that attacks the roots of the plant.

The vineyard of Bordeaux owes its salvation to the grafting of a vine French (vitis vinifera-) on an American grape (Vitis labrusca on) but it was not until the interwar period that the vineyard is reconstituted. However, the general economic situation allows the market for Bordeaux wines to experience relative prosperity until the end of the nineteenth century (Rank 1855).
Late nineteenth, early twentieth century, a new crisis captured the market for Bordeaux wines, the falling of prices due to overproduction and fraud. The French and foreign buyers lose confidence in the wines of Bordeaux.

From these facts, wine professionals will protect themselves by creating legislative body such as the INAO (Institut National des Appellations d'Origine 1935-1936) which governed the AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée), representing today 98 % of the Bordeaux. Operating conditions of the AOC are governed by specific conditions of production: geographical area, choice of grape varieties, alcoholic degree, hectoliters per hectare yield.

The economic crisis of 1929 will generate overproduction, falling prices, and will see the development of cooperatives. The latter provide the Gironde Wholesalers of quality wines from 1932 to 1950, cooperatives flourish.

The end of World War II will bring some discomfort in the Bordeaux wine merchants. Indeed during the occupation, some traders continued to trade with the Germans very fond of the wines of Bordeaux.

The frost of 1956, will clean up the vineyard is the beginning of the revolution and wine technology.
Finally, the "thirty glorious years" will bring the wines of Bordeaux in a good period in which export to countries like the United States will grow substantially.