Wine can be a real undertaking to make. Between growing the grapes, fermenting, bottling and selling it can seem to take a village just to produce a bottle. This makes it easy for wine to become part of a big industrial effort but on a small French island the process is still done by only a small group of monks. The Lerins Abbey, on a small island of the same name, is home to only 20 monks but churns out 30,000 bottles of premium wines every year along with their religious duties. The island is not only a perfect wine growing region but also is an ancient monastery.
While it hasn’t always been a vineyard, the island has a rich French history. Founded as a monastery in the year 405 it has been inhabited in some way or another ever since, and not always by monks. For a period of 20 years after the French Revolution was sold to an actress. But in 1859 the ownership again changed into the hands of someone focused on religion.
In the 1990’s the monks of the island decided that they wanted their wine to be not only the best possible but sought after in the wine bags of the wine fans in France, because it does no good to make it if no one wants it. And indeed they are succeeding, their wine is so sought after that the monastery is now able to live their modest lives solely on the sales of the wine they make. While unlikely that their wine will ever be sold outside of France it is good to know about such long standing wine traditions that are still alive today.
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