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Les Vignerons d'Aspiran

Les Vignerons d'Aspiran

Presentation

Aspiran Wine-Farmers' co-operative Winery

Les Vignerons d'Aspiran

 

 

The Aspiran Co-operative was founded in 1932 for specific reasons and under particular conditions

At the time 55% of the production of the farms in the area was red wine, and 45% for white (25% Terret-bourret and 20% Clairette). However, almost all the white wine in the village was bought by French (Noilly-Prat, Dubonnet, Bhyrr, ...) and Italian (Cinzano, Martini) vermouth-makers. They bought the grapes on two different occasions: firstly at the start of the grape harvest when they bought grape must transformed into dessert wine by the addition of alcohol, and again at the end of the grape harvest when they bought up the remaining dry whites. However, to make the process easier, (in particular to facilitate storing the alcohol) the dessert wines were bought from the larger wine-farmers, and for a higher price than ordinary dry white wines (20% to 40% higher), the small farmers, once again, being the losers.

This situation led the small farmers to form a co-operative winery to make their wine. A hundred and twenty of them joined the first year and produced between 12,000 and 15,000 hectolitres of wine; it thus became the largest wine-producer in the village.
The result, from the first year onwards, was that their whole crop was sold at harvest-time and paid in full by 31 December the same year. At the time the Co-operative made all the members' white wines only, but in 1940, during the Second World War, an annex was added to make red wine. Since then the Co-operative has gone from strength to strength, and today produces from 50,000 to 70,000 hectolitres.