Lirac

Rhone Valley 

Lirac in Rhone 

Lirac wines were appreciated by the royal and papal courts in Avignon at the time of the schism. Pope Innocent IV ordered 20 casks of wine from there in 1357 and Henry IV of France and Louis XIV served them regularly at court, where they were called simple Rhône wine.

In the mid-17th century the right-bank district of the Côte du Rhône had issued regulations to govern the quality of its wine.

In 1737 the king ordered that casks of Lirac wine shipped from the nearby river port of Roquemaure should be branded with the letters CDR to introduce a system of protecting its origin. 

The rules for its Côte du Rhône thus formed the very early basis of today's nationwide AOC system governed by the INAO

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