Professor Rod Phillips spent two weeks in the Bugey region of eastern France in December. He spent part of this time in the regional archive (Archives départementales de l’Ain), researching wine production and consumption during the French Revolution for a future book. Among his findings was an inventory of fine wines seized from the cellars of people suspected of being enemies of the Revolution. The wine was confiscated and was to be sold for the benefit of the poor.
During the rest of the time Rod (who is also a wine writer) visited some 40 wineries to taste wine and talk to wine-makers. Bugey is not well known as a wine region, even in France. Wine is produced by about 80 mostly small-scale wineries that are dispersed in scores of remote small villages (some with fewer than 100 inhabitants) that date back to the Middle Ages. In the foothills of the Alps, the Bugey region is difficult to access, with narrow, winding roads through forests that turn apparently short distances into long drives. Rod had been impressed by Bugey wines on earlier visits to work in this archive. He will write an article on the region and its wines for The World of Fine Wine, a leading wine periodical published in the UK that he contributes to.
Rod’s visits to Bugey wineries in December caught the attention of local media and he did several print and television interviews.