AOC Muscat Beaumes-de-Venise

Traces of human activity in Beaumes- de-Venise date back to the dawn of time. Vines were planted by the ancient Greeks, and flourished under the Romans. In his Natural History, written in the first century, Pliny the Elder describes Muscat as a lively, fruity wine, long grown in Balme. He called it the “vine of the bees.”

In the 14th century, wine enthusiast Pope Clement V planted a Muscat vineyard across 70 hectares of Beaumes-de- Venise hillside. During the French Wars of Religion, at the time of the Renaissance, the vineyards all but disappeared. It was not until the 18th century that they returned to their former glory, championed by Joseph Roumanille and Frédéric Mistral wind.

In the late 19th century, the Vaucluse vineyards were almost eradicated yet again, this time by phylloxera. After nearly being forgotten, Muscat-de- Beaumes-de-Venise was revived at the beginning of the 20th century, and Muscat-de-Beaumes-de-Venise Vin Doux Naturel was awarded AOC status in 1945, applied retroactively to include the 1943 vintage.