Chiroubles

🇫🇷 France

AOC Rare find

Cru 1936 - Highest altitude Cru, 320 hectares where the man who saved French wine is buried

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Region profile

History

Victor Pulliat (1827-1896), born in this village, was the ampelographer who discovered that grafting European vines onto American rootstock could save them from the phylloxera epidemic that was destroying French vineyards in the 1870s-1890s. His insight saved not just Beaujolais but all of French wine. The village erected a bronze statue in his honor with the inscription "sauveur du vignoble contre le phylloxéra." Near the statue stands a remarkable 12th-century Byzantine-style church with Romanesque arches - one of the few Byzantine architectural examples in Burgundy. Pulliat is buried in the village cemetery he helped save.

Climate
Highest vineyards in Beaujolais (270-600m); coolest microclimate extends growing season; pure granite soil on steep slopes; morning mists preserve acidity
Signature wines
Domaine Cheysson "Les Farges" - family owned continuously since 1868 (predating phylloxera), their 26-hectare estate on pure granite at 400m produces the definitive Chiroubles: ethereal, aromatic, impossibly fresh
What sets it apart
Birthplace and burial site of Victor Pulliat, the man who saved French wine from extinction; produces the most immediately delicious Cru - meant to be drunk young with abandon

Facts

  • 320 hectares with 60 growers producing 2.3M bottles
  • highest altitude Cru reaching 600m
  • Victor Pulliat's bronze statue inscribed "sauveur du vignoble contre le phylloxéra" (savior of the vineyard from phylloxera)
  • AOC September 1936

Region profile from the Wine Memories wine-data corpus · verified January 2026