Index Wines of Provence History According to Greek Legend, Dionysos discovered vine, coming up from Gods' blood drop. His friend Icarios, whom he made discover wine's virtue to, couldn't control his pleasure so that during a banquet, he got killed by his drunk guests. And all around the Mediterranean sea, birthplace of civilisations, were lauded the wine to the skies, around Dionysos and Bacchus. Even along the Nile, temples' and tombs' paints are unequivocal. Within them can be discovered polychromes of vintages and masking. For this reason, vine were already cultivated 600 years before Christ in Provence. Those who built Marseille spread vine all along on the Mediterranean seaside. From Middle Age, Provence's economy were based on vine and wine's trade. Mass wine at the begining, it was mostly profitable for abbeys like The Thoronet Abbey, The Lerins Islands' Abbey, Saint-Pons Abbey in Nice and for Saint-Victor's Abbey. During the 14th century, an order from Dukes of Bourgogne authenticated The Wine of Provence as Pope's and King of France's Wine. Rosé wine is the first known wine. In spite of what some people still think, Rosé is not a mixture of white and red wine. Rosé is the first juice of grapes, reserved for the lords. Red wine, also called Black Wine in those times, results from a long maceration of the last bunches from grape harvest. As it was too strong, this wine was given to serves. White wine were almost non-existent. During second half of the 15th century, in spite of the predilection of the King René for Rosé, and its introduction at the England's court, Rosé become forsaken little by little, until the end of 17th century. It can be noticed that Provence exporting areas were those which, later, would give their name to nowadays' great labels : Cassis, Colomars (close to the village of Saint-Roman-de-Bellet, on hills surrounding the west of Nice), Beausset (overhang Bandol), Taradeau, Draguignan, Les-Arcs (that shelters La Maison des Côtes de Provence), Saint-Tropez, Villars-sur-Var. The Marchioness of Sévigné liked to qualify, at the Court of Louis XIV, the wines of Provence as "exquisite". Culture of the olive-tree with its contribution of manures, made the wines of Provence inept, without smoothness . They also cannot be preserved any more. During the 19th century, phylloxera, poldery mildew of the grapevine, downy mildew of grape destroyed a great part of the Vineyards. In the Var Region the acreage falls from 75.000 to 23.000 hectares and the production collapses to 600.000 of hectolitres instead of four million before. Begining of the 20th century, a production without quota will take the step on Quality. From 1907, laws then will regulate the manufacture of wine and as of 1930 associations having vocation of taking care on the quality of the productions are created. Finally, in 1935, a decree enacts a strict regulation which allows the wines of Bandol, Bellet, Cassis and Palette (close to Aix-en-Provence) to become labels of controlled origin and to be recognized like such both in France andEurope and even the whole World.