Contemporary with the first paid holidays in France, in 1936, the Route des Grands Crus invented wine tourism , a new way of traveling.

Created in 1937 by the Departmental Council of Côte-d'Or, it is the oldest wine route in France and the first to have paved the way for tourist discovery of a vineyard . With the democratization of the car and leisure travel, it has acquired a reputation that has gone far beyond the French borders. Its route crosses 37 legendary villages and two towns, Dijon and Beaune, of immense heritage wealth .

 

Advantages skillfully put forward by the actors, professionals and politicians, of the interwar period. Revisiting the very old Burgundian wine-growing tradition dating back to the great medieval Benedictine and Cistercian abbeys, the winegrowers of the 1930s wanted to restore their profession to its nobility. In 1934, shaken by the crisis, they founded in Nuits-Saint-Georges, the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin.

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Others will follow in the 1960s. From 1938, the Saint-Vincent Tournante which they organize every winter won the support of a new audience, attracted by the tourist route and its cultural vitality. Wine tourism was already taking shape.