The Claims of a Wine Growing Region
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Although the practice whereby a wine is strictly associated to its place of production, known as its “climate,” defines the Burgundy wine-growing area today, it emerged only in the 18th century. The history of the commercial regulation of Beaune wines from the Middle Ages onward provides us with some clues as to the basic motivations for the key process at play in the formalization of a territory. This process was a consequence of changes in the socioeconomic constraints that affected the area, characterized by both collective rights and increasingly free trade. However, the place of production was of no interest to lawmakers working to define wines as long as regulatory modes could be derived from the strict framework created by municipal franchises. Rather, it became an indispensable tool when these collective and customary rules began to be seen as obstacles to the proper growth of free trade, which became the all-encompassing goal from which nothing should detract. This took place in the 1730s and 1740s, a time of far-reaching upheaval in the traditional structures of the Ancien Régime in Burgundy, which are highly relevant to this narrative.
Réseaux sociaux