Costières de Nîmes

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Vineyards on the Costières de Nimes plateau

The Costières de Nîmes wine-growing region is located in the very northeast of the Languedoc wine-growing region and extends south and east of the city of Nîmes and north of the Camargue . The area forms the transition to the Rhône wine-growing region and, both geographically and in terms of wine law, still belongs to the Rhone Valley .

The Clairette de Bellegarde appellation is an enclave within the area. The area was on July 4, 1986, the name Costières du Gard the status of a Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC shortly) but was renamed in 1989 in the now valid name to confusion with the local wine Vin de Pays du Gard exclude .

Since July 19, 2004 it has also been officially recognized that the Costières de Nîmes corresponds more closely to a Rhône wine in its typicity. The enclave Clairette de Bellegarde is still included in the Languedoc wine-growing region.

The area's vineyards cover 25,000 hectares of theoretically approved area in 24 municipalities in the Gard department , but only about half of them are planted. Around 4,600 hectares of the planted area has AOC status, the other 7,000 hectares may be marketed as Vin de Pays or table wine , as the high requirements of the appellation have not yet been met there.

The terrain is flat; the vineyards are at a height between 20 and 100 m above sea level. NN . The floors are made of up to 12 m thick Villafranchian - gravels . These are Pleistocene pebble deposits from the Rhone , the Gardons and partly also the Durance . This villa franchium gravel and the special terrain climate of the Costière du Gard are the foundations of the terroir of the Costières de Nîmes. The approved vineyards are spread across the municipalities of Aubord , Beaucaire , Beauvoisin , Bellegarde , Bernis , Bezouce , Bouillargues , Le Callar , Caissargues , Garons , Générac , Jonquières-Saint-Vincent , Lédenon , Manduel , Meynes , Milhaud , Nîmes , Redessan , Rodhillan , Saint Gilles , Sernhac , Uchaud , Vauvert and Vestric-et-Candiac .

Red wine (51%) and rosé wine (45.5%) make up over 96% of production. They are made from the vine Carignan , Cinsault (maximum 40%), Grenache (at least 25%), and Mourvèdre and Syrah blended (at least 20%). A 10 percent share of white grape varieties is also allowed in rosé. Most of the rosé wines are made using the Saignée process.

The white wine consists mainly of the grape varieties Grenache Blanc , Marsanne blanche and Roussanne . In addition, Clairette Blanche , Bourboulenc , Ugni Blanc (currently a maximum of 30%, but no longer permitted from the 2010 harvest), Macabeo and Vermentino (also called Rolle here) are permitted.

Individual evidence

  1. JORF n ° 177 du 1 août 2004 page 13753 texts n ° 25: Arrêté du 19 juillet 2004 relatif à la composition des comités régionaux vins et eaux-de-vie de l'Institut national des appellations d'origine

literature

  • Pierre Galet: Cépages et Vignobles de France . Lavoisier Publishing House, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-7430-0585-8 .
  • Benoît France: Grand Atlas des Vignobles de France . Éditions SOLAR publishing house, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-263-03242-8 .
  • Carolin Weiß and Peter Frankenberg: Changements du paysage agricole en Costière du Gard. In: Bul. Soc. Et. Sc. Nat de Nîmes et Gard. 61 (1997), pp. 25-35.