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Côtes du Rhône AOC

French wine appellation

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 24, 2025
Entity authorityQ1151005 ↗
Source-derived summary

Côtes du Rhône (French: [kot dy ʁon]) is a wine-growing Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) for the Rhône wine region of France, which may be used throughout the region, also in those areas which are covered by other AOCs. In a limited part of the region, the Côtes-du-Rhône Villages AOC may be used, in some cases together with the name of the commune.

Côtes du Rhône are the basic AOC wines of the Rhône region, and exist as red, white and rosé wines, generally dominated by Grenache for reds and rosés, or Grenache blanc for whites.

History

Wines have been produced in the region since pre-Roman times, and those from the right bank were the favourite wines of kings and the papal community in Avignon at the time of the schism.

In the mid-17th century the right-bank district of Côte du Rhône had issued regulations to govern the quality of its wine and in 1737 the king ordered that casks of wine shipped from the nearby river port of Roquemaure, directly on the right bank 12 km north of Avignon on the left bank, should be branded with the letters CDR to introduce a system of protecting its origin. The rules for its Côte du Rhône thus formed the very early basis of today's nationwide AOC system governed by the INAO. The name was changed to Côtes du Rhône when the left-bank wines were included in the appellation some hundred years later. The appellation received full recognition by a High Court decision in 1937, and the rules were revised in 1996 and 2001 to take into account new conditions of production.

Roquemaure is known as "La Capitale des Amoureux", or "The Capital of Lovers". In 1868 the relics of St. Valentine arrived after being purchased from Rome by Maximilian Richard, a local dignitary, as it was believed that the relics would protect the vines from phylloxera which ravaged the vineyards in 1866.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Côtes du Rhône AOC” as french wine appellation. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Côtes, Rhône and French.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1737, 1937, 1996, 2001—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1937. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Côtes, Rhône and French providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Côtes du Rhône AOC”, the useful work is to connect “french wine appellation” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1151005. VIAF identifies the subject as 248766910. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1737, 1937, 1996 and 2001.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Côtes du Rhône AOC” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.