The 1999 naming of the Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion area of Bordeaux, France, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site may have been long in coming, but it was inevitable. Long in coming in the sense that the area has been producing quality wines for 2,000 years, since Roman times, when the region was known as Aquitania. 

In the Middle Ages, Saint-Emilion was a stop on the pilgrimage path that led from northern Europe to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela, in those days the most popular pilgrimage destination in Christendom. As locals built inns, hostels and other facilities to host travelers, the area’s tasty wines acquired a reputation – especially among the English – that never left them. 

But the best was yet to be. Starting in 1855, the French decided to classify the wines of Bordeaux by a ranking system that identified “first great growths” – the most superlative of wines – followed by “great growths” and then lesser wines. That classification system, first applied in the Medoc area to such brilliant wines as Lafite-Rothschild and Haut-Brion, later spread to neighboring Saint-Emilion. Today, Chateau Ausone and Chateau Cheval Blanc rank as Saint-Emilion’s “first great growths,” followed by such wines as chateaux Belair, Canon and Figeac.  

The fame of those wines, coupled with the longevity of the area’s vineyards, made recognition by the World Heritage Committee an almost sure thing. In its “justification” for naming Saint-Emilion to the exclusive worldwide collection of unique cultural, historical and natural sites, the Committee said, “The Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion is an outstanding example of a historic vineyard landscape that has survived intact and in activity to the present day. The intensive cultivation of grapes for wine production in a precisely defined region and the resulting landscape is illustrated in an exceptional way by the historic Jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion.”

The Committee’s description hints at just how traditional Saint-Emilion’s vinicultural practices are. Since Roman times, local vintners have practiced a philosophy of minimal interference with the wine, depending on weather, soil and the artistic mixing of wine varietals to achieve often astounding results. There is no use of insecticides or herbicides, or heavy intervention when vines have been strained by drought.  

At the heart of the jurisdiction is the village of Saint-Emilion, which boasts more historical riches than most similar-sized villages in France. One of the most interesting is l’Eglise Monolithe, a ninth-century church carved from a giant rock. It is the largest church of its kind in Europe. Other attractions include the village’s narrow medieval streets and ancient underground chambers used to store wine. Saint-Emilion is a perfect place in which to contemplate old things and how they keep their identities even as the ages unfold. When that contemplation is aided by wine from a vineyard whose soil has been cultivated for 2,000 years, the effect is a memorable one.  — Patrick Totty