Boudes: current and past vineyardsIn my posting of 19th August 2009 I quoted the claim by the Chambre d’Agriculture of the Auvergne that in 1895 the Puy-de-Dôme was France’s third départment viticole with 44,000 hectares of vines planted. I'm not sure that this is correct having looked at the tables of production and area under vine in Marcel Lachiver's seminal work: Vins, vignes et vignerons (Fayard 1988). Given the semi-mountainous topography of Le Puy-de-Dôme, it would be surprising even in 1895, unless it was an anomaly due to phylloxera, that there were more vines here than in places like the Midi and Bordeaux.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Marcel Lachiver's book is the appendix with the tables of statistics covering La Vignoble Français from 1788 (just before the French Revolution) to 1987. Here you will find details of the area planted per départment, production, yields and the number of producers.
According to the stats quoted by Lachiver for 1890-1899 there were 44,055 ha of vines in the Puy-de-Dôme départment. However, the Aude (115,998 ha), Gard (56,154), Gers (78,620), Gironde (139,035), Hérault (174,497) and Pyrénées-Orientales (54,240) all had more over that decade. Certainly around 1895 was the high point for Le Puy-de-Dôme, the following decade (1900-1909) the area had dropped to 26,003 and to 17,983 in 1910-1919. In 1788 there had been 17,112 ha. So it looks like le Puy-de-Dôme was the seventh largest French départment viticole in the last decade of the 19th century not the third. Still this remains a very significant area under vine. After all the entire Loire Valley has only 70,000 hectares of vines planted and it is the third largest French wine region. Muscadet, the Loire's largest appellation with around 13,000 ha covers only 29.5% of the area once under vine in le Puy-de-Dôme!
Nor can Le Puy-de-Dôme claim to have been the third départment in terms of wine production during the decade – 1890-1899 – when they produced 1,032,199 hls. They were outstripped by Aude (3,627,598), Bouches-du-Rhône (1,073,201), Gard (2,006,494), Gironde (3,996,586), Herault (7,521,051) and Pyrénées-Orientales (1,705,717), so they were seventh in production too.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Marcel Lachiver's book is the appendix with the tables of statistics covering La Vignoble Français from 1788 (just before the French Revolution) to 1987. Here you will find details of the area planted per départment, production, yields and the number of producers.According to the stats quoted by Lachiver for 1890-1899 there were 44,055 ha of vines in the Puy-de-Dôme départment. However, the Aude (115,998 ha), Gard (56,154), Gers (78,620), Gironde (139,035), Hérault (174,497) and Pyrénées-Orientales (54,240) all had more over that decade. Certainly around 1895 was the high point for Le Puy-de-Dôme, the following decade (1900-1909) the area had dropped to 26,003 and to 17,983 in 1910-1919. In 1788 there had been 17,112 ha. So it looks like le Puy-de-Dôme was the seventh largest French départment viticole in the last decade of the 19th century not the third. Still this remains a very significant area under vine. After all the entire Loire Valley has only 70,000 hectares of vines planted and it is the third largest French wine region. Muscadet, the Loire's largest appellation with around 13,000 ha covers only 29.5% of the area once under vine in le Puy-de-Dôme!
Nor can Le Puy-de-Dôme claim to have been the third départment in terms of wine production during the decade – 1890-1899 – when they produced 1,032,199 hls. They were outstripped by Aude (3,627,598), Bouches-du-Rhône (1,073,201), Gard (2,006,494), Gironde (3,996,586), Herault (7,521,051) and Pyrénées-Orientales (1,705,717), so they were seventh in production too.
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