page_title: Chablis wine
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Chablis wine / History
caption_attribution_description: The Grand Cru vineyards north of Chablis, Burgundy. From left to right - Bougros, Les Preuses, Vaudésir, Grenouilles around the house, Valmur, Les Clos, Blanchots and in the far distance across the Vallée de Brechain, the Premier Cru of Montée de Tonnerre. Three photos stitched together.
context_page_description: The Chablis region is the northernmost wine district of the Burgundy region in France. The cool climate of this region produces wines with more acidity and flavors less fruity than Chardonnay wines grown in warmer climates. These wines often have a "flinty" note, sometimes described as "goût de pierre à fusil", and sometimes as "steely". The Chablis Appellation d'origine contrôlée is required to use Chardonnay grapes solely.
  The grapevines around the town of Chablis make a dry white wine renowned for the purity of its aroma and taste. In comparison with the white wines from the rest of Burgundy, Chablis wine has typically much less influence of oak. Most basic Chablis is unoaked, and vinified in stainless steel tanks.
  The amount of barrel maturation, if any, is a stylistic choice which varies widely among Chablis producers. Many Grand Cru and Premier Cru wines receive some maturation in oak barrels, but typically the time in barrel and the proportion of new barrels is much smaller than for white wines of Côte de Beaune.
context_section_description: During the Middle Ages the Catholic Church, particularly Cistercian monks, became a major influence in establishing the economic and commercial interest of viticulture for the region. Pontigny Abbey was founded in 1114, and the monks planted vines along the Serein. Anséric de Montréal gave a vineyard at Chablis to the Abbey in 1186. In 1245 the chronicler Salimbene di Adam described a Chablis wine. Chardonnay is believed to have first been planted in Chablis by the Cistercians of Pontigny Abbey in the 12th century, and from there spread south to the rest of the Burgundy region.
  The Chablis area became part of the Duchy of Burgundy in the 15th century. There are records in the mid-15th century of Chablis wine being shipped to Flanders and Picardy. But in February 1568 the town was besieged by the Huguenots, who burned part of it. 
  The Seine river, easily accessible via the nearby Yonne river, gave the Chablis wine producers a near monopoly on the lucrative Parisian market. In the 17th century, the English discovered the wine and began importing large volumes. By the 19th century there were nearly 98,840 acres (40,000 ha) of vines planted in Chablis with vineyards stretching from the town of Chablis to Joigny and Sens along the Yonne. Some Champagne producers used Chablis as a basis for a sparkling cuvée. 
  With the French Revolution, the monastic vineyards became biens nationaux, and were auctioned off. The new owners were mostly local, and the political upheaval saw small farmers involved as part-time vignerons. The English market continued to prosper. The 19th-century Russian novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy mentions "classic Chablis" as a commonplace choice of wine.
  The end of the 19th century was a difficult time for the Chablis growers. Firstly, with new railway systems linking all parts of the country with Paris, there was inexpensive wine from regions in the Midi that undercut Chablis. The vineyards were affected by oidium from 1886, and then phylloxera from 1887. Effective replacement of vinestocks to counter phylloxera took some 15 years. Many Chablis producers gave up winemaking, the acreage in the region steadily declining throughout much of the early 20th century. By the 1950s there were only 1,235 acres (500 ha) of vines planted in Chablis.
  The 20th century did bring about a renewed commitment to quality production and ushered in technological advances that would allow viticulture to be more profitable and reliable in this cool northern climate. In 1938, the Institut National des Appellations d'Origine created the Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) region for Chablis that mandated the grape variety (Chardonnay) and acceptable winemaking and viticultural practices within delineated boundaries. One of the objectives of the AOC establishment was to protect the name "Chablis", which by this time was already being inappropriately used to refer to just about any white wine made from any number of white grape varieties all across the world. In the early 1960s, technological advances in vineyard frost protection minimized some of the risk and financial cost associated with variable vintages and climate of Chablis. The worldwide "Chardonnay-boom" of the mid-late 20th century, opened up prosperous worldwide markets to Chablis and vineyard plantings saw a period of steady increase. By 2004, vineyard plantings in Chablis reached a little over 10,000 acres (4,000 ha).
caption: The Grand Cru vineyards of Chablis. From left to right: Les Preuses, Vaudésir, Grenouilles (around the house), Valmur, Les Clos, Blanchots and in the far distance across the Vallée de Brechain, the Premier Cru of Montée de Tonnerre.
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