Thursday, 11 January, 2024
Wine Spectator, Collin Dreizen
As the home of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Cornas, Condrieu and other globally known wines, France’s Rhône Valley is an acclaimed wine region. It’s also an ancient one and, as we recently learned, it’s been keeping a few more centuries-old secrets.
This past November, the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Preventives (INRAP)—overseen by France’s Ministry of Culture—announced that its archaeologists uncovered an ancient winery near the town of Laveyron in the Rhône’s Drôme department. Beginning their dig in May 2023, archaeologists found the ruins in a 4-acre site set to become a heavy goods vehicle parking lot for Saica Group, a leading recycled paper manufacturer. Excavations will finish in January 2024. So who was making vino here?
Based on evidence so far (which researchers are still studying), it looks like the winery may date to the first century A.D., and was possibly built upon structures dating even earlier. According to INRAP operations and research manager Pascale Réthoré, post holes at the site might indicate the presence of a palisade built by people from the Iron Age's La Tène culture (possibly around 50 or 30 B.C.).
To read the full article, click HERE.