Vin haut poitou biography

The climate of Vienne is very good for the vine, not very cold and a little humid in the spring, a little hot in the summer, very subject to late frosts but therefore it can give the wine certain qualities that it would not have elsewhere.

– Jules Guyot, Étude des Vignobles de France (L’Imprimerie Impériale, 1868)

The city of Poitiers, at the heart of the Vienne département south of the Loire, has long occupied a strategically important position in western France, even in the Gallo-Roman era when it went by the name Limonium.

At this time it sat on a (somewhat meandering) Roman road which ran from Lyon, in the Rhône Valley to the east, to the town of Saintes, close to the Atlantic coast. It was also the capital city for the Pictones, a Gallic tribe.

Over many years the city grew in terms of wealth and influence, and it had all the trappings to show it, including an amphitheatre and impressive public baths.

This sense of import did not wa