Right in the middle of the triangle making up the towns of Carpentras, Orange and Vaison-la-Romaine is the village of Gigondas. Once known as « Jucunditas » which in Latin means joy and jubilation. A village therefore whose destiny was to cultivate vines and make wine and hence led to the development of authentic winemaking traditions for the following two thousand years.
In fact the first ever vineyards can be traced back to veterans of the Second Roman Legion and founders of the « Colonia Julia Arausio » who were based in the town of Orange during the 1st century B.C. As evidence there are still Gallo-Roman vats in the wine cellars of Domaine de Saint Cosme.

At the end of the 19th century, following the plagues of phylloxera which attacked vines all over France, olive groves were planted in Gigondas to replace the diseased vines. But even the olive trees couldn’t survive the terrible frosts in the winters of 1929 and 1956. They were therefore replaced once again by vines at the beginning of the 1960s. And today the same vines still dominate the hills of Gigondas. Under the influence of Eugène Raspail, vine cultivation took on a more agronomical and organised dimension.

If vines have always preferred the soils of Gigondas, the wine itself didn’t gain recognition until 1971 when it obtained the appellation « Gigondas, Cru des Côtes du Rhône ».
For two thousand years, the village in the heart of the Dentelles de Montmirail lived mainly from its wines. Today, more than 200 winemakers continue this tradition.

The Gigondas vineyard stretches over a surface area of 1250 hectares ( 2750 acres). It only covers the rural district of Gigondas, which in turn is part of the Vaucluse region, located in the South-Eastern part of the Rhône Valley vineyard.

This vineyard is unique in its diversity. Gigondas appellation wines begin on the plateau at an altitude of 100m, gently climbing up around the village to finish with abrupt slopes of up to 430m high on the areas around the Dentelles de Montmirail. These mountains being incredible pyramids of grey calcareous rocks cutting the Provençal blue sky and up to 500m high on Saint-Amand mountain.
Its natural limits follow the line made by the Dentelles de Montmirail to the East, the Ouvèze River to the West, the Trignon torrent and Saint-Amand in the North and the hills leading down from the Dentelles to the South.