Bergerac, a time of sharing

On the field or on the vineyard: the Bergerac winemakers are in shape!
The example is given by the XV de la grappe team gathering the Bergerac winemakers and friends of Bergerac wines!
They take this team strength and joy of being together from their favourite sports, the cliché South West sports rugby and rowing, to offer something simple to taste in the wine world.
With a welcoming tradition stuck in their DNA, the Bergerac winemakers and their wines invite you to savour a time of sharing.

The XV de la grappe team

Together and nothing else

It’s good to be together. 20,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon and his friends used to hunt reindeers in groups and hurried to paint the walls of Lascaux as collective works of art that keep us emotional nowadays.
If Périgord had already everything to be a promised land favourable to sedentarization, life was not all peace and quiet and they better had to act as a team instead of alone to survive.

According to experts, this is the challenge the first Perigordians decided to take up by giving birth to a harmonised society based on solidarity and sharing.

Bienvenue, Welcome!

Unfortunately for our dear ancestors of Palaeolithic, Bergerac wine – the exceptional social lubricant – had not been invented yet. And of course, good things come to those who wait. Indeed, a “few” years later, this terrible lack has been filled in when the Roman legions of Crassus (young lieutenant of Cesar) entered Aquitaine and introduced the divine beverage to the natives.

Since then, feasts with friends have a new soul. When the pax romana was established, the Gallic aristocrats from Burdigala, enjoying the beverage way before this period, decided to create their own vineyards. The archaeological site of Montcaret and its mash tank now show that vineyards were present in Perigord since Gallo-Roman times. But it is during the XIIIth century that Bergerac wine became famous. Abbeys and seigneuries owned the essential of the Vinée.

In January 1255, Bergerac was submitted to the English King Henri III who raised the city into an autonomous jurisdiction and authorized the free exchange of wines on Dordogne river. Until then, it was slowed down by Bordeaux and their proximity to the Garonne mouth; Bergerac wine trade became flourishing,contributing to the international success of the vineyard.

So, through time, as a welcoming land and great migrating crossroads, Perigord did not stop enriching itself thanks to the contact with other people. Is it a coincidence that the Bergerac dry white matches so well with Fish and Chips? Bergerac wines are opened to the world, it is written in their story and of course, they are the best wines to drink during the simplest sharing occasions.