feature / then and now / Wine in the French Revolution


that selling off Church property would bring in millions of livres (French pounds). The property in question—which included religious houses, supernumerary churches, and agricultural estates and their buildings and equipment— accounted for about one tenth of France’s land. This land included thousands of hectares of vineyards,


together with cellars, wine presses, and barrels. Some vineyards were owned by large religious houses, such as the Cistercians; by 1789, they owned about 2,000ha (5,000 acres) of vineyards in Burgundy, including vines in some of the most prestigious districts, such as Vougeot and Corton. Other Church-owned vineyards included the modest holdings of individual parishes throughout France, often a few rows of vines scattered among a number of parcels. In Volnay, the parish owned, and the priest derived income from, about 0.66ha (1.5 acres).3 Although there was no explicit intention to reconfigure


Wine, like other commodities, reflected the social hierarchies of the Old Regime. Revolutionary administrations tried to level society. Wine thus became one of the symbols of social and political change, and it is not surprising that governments paid attention to it


Wine, like other commodities, reflected the social


hierarchies of Old Regime France. At one end, peasants and workers drank poor wine, ate gruel and coarse dark bread, and dressed in clothes made from serviceable fabrics such as cotton and linen. At the other, the elite drank fine wines, ate refined white bread and other delicacies, and wore clothes made of expensive materials such as silk and lace. Such distinctions came under attack as various Revolutionary administrations tried to level society. Citizens—everyone became a citoyen or citoyenne, as titles such as Sieur and Madame went out of fashion—were to drink affordable, good-quality wine, eat bread that was somewhere between refined white and coarse brown, and dress in modest clothing. Wine thus became one of the symbols of social and political change in Revolutionary France, and it is not surprising that governments paid attention to it.


Rich ecclesiastical pickings and fragmentation The first major impact of the Revolution on the nation’s wine resulted from one of the most important decisions made during the Revolution: the seizure of the assets of the French Church in 1790. As part of a reorganization of the Church, all property not needed for purely religious purposes—that is, churches where masses and other religious events, such as baptisms, took place—was decreed to be “property of the nation” (bien national) and was to be sold to private individuals. Sale would be by auction so as to maximize prices paid, and the money raised would be used to pay down the massive debt left by the monarchy, which had bankrupted France by the 1780s. Rather than repudiate the debt, the new Revolutionary legislature recognized


120 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 79 | 2023


the French wine industry (if we can call it that), the effect of the expropriation of Church vineyards was to end the centuries-old role of the Church in wine production. We do not know what proportion of French wine was made by Church entities and what proportion by secular owners before the Revolution, but it clearly varied by region. The Church played a much greater role in wine production in Burgundy than in Bordeaux, where the nobility was far more involved. But the sale of vineyards was countrywide, because religious houses, cathedrals, and parishes throughout France owned vines that were no longer considered necessary for the Church to function as a stripped-down institution concerned solely with spiritual matters. The auctions resulted in money flowing into the state


coffers. Wine was clearly regarded as a good investment, and all the expropriated vineyards seem to have fetched prices above the valuation that had been placed on them. Some sales showed modest premiums, such as 0.2ha (0.1 acre) of vines in Monthelie, which was valued at 500 livres and sold for 670 livres to an inhabitant of the village. Other lots did much better. Some 25ha (62 acres) of vines and some other land, together with buildings, cellars, and presses, all seized from the Abbey of Cîteaux, were bought by a royal notary from Paris for 150,100 livres, more than twice the 68,587-livre valuation.4


Meanwhile, the 0.66ha


(1.5 acres) of vines owned by the parish of Volnay were assessed at 1,883 livres and sold for 6,125, more than three times the valuation.5 The premiums paid for vineyards undoubtedly reflected their perceived future value. The wines of Volnay, for example, were among the most expensive in Burgundy, and half the parish’s parcels of vines were located in vineyards later designated premier cru. The successful bidders were largely urban professionals and merchants (in Champagne they included Jean-Rémy Moët, later of Moët-Hennessy, who acquired expropriated Church land to increase his holdings) or wealthier peasants who already owned vineyards. The collective result of these auctions was that, by 1793, virtually all French wine production was in the hands of secular owners. Small-scale vignerons and poorer peasants were largely shut out of these sales by the high prices the auctions achieved, but some got a start in vineyard ownership by other means. In some parts of southern France (and perhaps elsewhere), peasants took advantage of the fluid legal conditions brought on by the


Above: The Lesueur Brothers, Citizens Singing “La Marseillaise”.


Gouache taken from a series on the French Revolution; French School, 18th century, Revolutionary period. Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France. Photography © CCI / Bridgeman Images


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