At the end of the 19th century, the wine world underwent a cataclysm, the "phylloxeric crisis". This euphemism hides in fact a real war with a foreign occupation that has lasted for one hundred and fifty years.

 

The consequences for viticulture have been dramatic.

​

Almost all of the European vineyard had to be reconstituted, from vines grafted on American roots, resistant to attacks of the aphid Phylloxera.

​

France has abandoned its global supremacy and many winemakers have fled to Algeria and South America.

A third of the vineyards have been lost.

The quality vineyards of the mountains have been abandoned.

​

The villages were deserted by the exodus to the plains, where intensive production, assisted by nitrogen fertilizers, chemistry and mechanization, have definitively revolutionized viticulture.

​

Viticulture went from intensive to extensive, becoming polluting, industrial and chemical.