CHATEAUMEILLANT

The CHATEAUMEILLANT appellation

Terroir

Located south of Bourges, the Châteaumeillant AOC is the appellation which is the "most central in France." The 80 hectares of vines that make up the Châteaumeillant vineyards are planted on predominantly sandy and sandy-clay siliceous soil.

The subsoils consist of a metamorphosed layer mainly comprised of sandstone, mica schist and gneiss. The grape varieties used to make our Chateaumeillant wines are Gamay and Pinot Noir.

The former makes up 75% of the vines planted.

History

The first vineyards date back to the 5th century. The vine was cultivated more intensively in the Middle Ages, according to old documents from that time, which set out the regulations for wine production and which mention vineyard areas still under cultivation today.

In 1869, 1200 hectares of vineyards were documented. These were to be decimated in the late nineteenth century by phylloxera, along with all the other French wine regions. However, the Châteaumeillant vineyards survived even though the surface area continued to decrease until the early 1990s.

In 1965, Châteaumeillant wine received the AOVDQS designation.
The arrival of young winemakers since the 1990s has given the wine region fresh impetus and because of this an application for AOC status was submitted. After several years of hard work and lobbying the INAO, the wine area was decreed an AOC, on 22 November, 2010.