Informations directionnelles

Emprunter tout droit la rue du Général Leclerc. Prendre la 2ème à gauche (rue Marie, au début de laquelle se trouve le panneau sur la Chaussée Brunehaut et les fermes du village). Continuer la rue jusqu’au cimetière.

Vineyards
A hillside conducive to common varieties

 

 

Wine, a daily drink...

There are various theories about the etymology of Vigny. The village name could come from the Latin anthroponym "Vinius" the name of a Roman general of antiquity, followed by the suffix -acum-, "domain". It could also be taken from the Latin "Vignei", "Vinnetum", "Vinneem" or "Vignetum" meaning a place planted with vines. The seventeenth century municipal land register actually numbered 462 plots of vines for 146 owners. Covering a large area, the vineyard was well exposed, facing southwest. It extended over Le Bord'Haut and to the place called "la Fontaine aux malades » (fountain of the sick). It was bounded by the chemin de Vernon to the north and rue Beaudouin to the south.

 

 

... in search of quality

The wine was designated as "Vin de Vigny" or "Vignoble de Vigny"; the grape varieties were mainly Gamay, Meunier and Meslier. From the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, the vines produced white wine or claret. Tastes shifted in the seventeenth century toward red wines. Vigny was not spared by the outbreak of phylloxera (a grapevine aphid) that decimated almost all the vines around 1876. In the nineteenth century, the development of the railway on a national scale was fatal to the winegrowers of Ile-de-France. Southern wines, from a more favourable climate, gained advantage. In the early twentieth century, a few small plots persisted until the 1950s. Today, we find traces of this winegrowing past in the place names, with one locality bearing the name of "Bois des Vignes" (grapevine wood), and in the architecture of the houses, many of which have wine cellars.