Coraline Brouez 5:11 p.m., September 4, 2021

In the program "La Table des bons vivant", Olivier Poels looks back on how we experienced wine during the Revolution in France.

From the know-how in force at that time, including the taste and the place that wine occupied in society.

Small overview.

If you've always wanted to know what the taste of a wine dating from the French Revolution tasted like, Olivier Poels gives you the answer on Laurent Mariotte's show

La Table des bons vivants

.

He also sheds light on how he was conditioned and perceived in society. 

>> Find La Table des bons vivant in podcast and in replay here 

Rapid oxidation 

“Wine did not travel very well at the time,” explains Olivier Poels.

"To begin with, it arrived in barrels and not in bottles. Bottling had not yet been created in the appellations. It took several days to arrive and once the goods reached their destination, either the merchant or the restaurateur put it in bottles or in a pitcher. The wine oxidizes very quickly with this process. " 

Question of taste 

"It's hard to say what the wine tasted like at the time, but it was probably good and even very good in good vintages," comments the columnist.

"We know, for example, that Napoleon Bonaparte, a little later, loved it. But the knowledge of the time in terms of winemaking was obviously very sketchy. Oenologists did not exist. We did not understand much of the wine making process. fermentation. All this was discovered much later, notably by Pasteur. "

On the other hand, just like today, some wines had better tastes ... "There were vintages more famous than others, and in particular, the so-called hot years which produced better wines."

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Democratization

"We can speak of a revolution in the consumption of wine since until the middle of the 18th century, wine was reserved for the most fortunate people, nobles and people who lived in cities," says Olivier Poels.

"Little by little, its consumption begins to reach more modest classes. The French vineyard, which until then is relatively small, will experience a phenomenal increase for several decades. There is an explosion in the yields of the plantations. vineyard prosperous and prices are soaring. And it is at this time that the greatest fortunes are made in the vineyard. " 

Ultimate proof of this growth, in 1780, an edict was issued to stop the frantic planting of vines all over France.