Collioure

Collioure (French pronunciation: ​[kɔˈljuʁ]; Catalan: Cotlliure, IPA: [kuʎˈʎiwɾə]) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France.

Geography

The town of Collioure is on the Côte Vermeille, in the canton of Côte Vermeille and in the arrondissement of Céret.

Toponymy

Collioure is named Cotlliure in Catalan.

History

There is a record of the castle at "Castrum Caucoliberi" having been mentioned as early as 673, indicating that the settlement here was of strategic and commercial importance during the Visigoth ascendancy.

Collioure used to be divided into two villages separated by the river Douy, the old town to the south named Port d'Avall (in French known as Le Faubourg) and the upstream port, Port d'Amunt (in French known as La Ville).

Collioure was taken in 1642 by the French troops of Maréchal de la Meilleraye. A decade later, the town was officially surrendered to France by the 1659 Treaty of Pyrenees. Because of its highly strategic importance, the town's fortifications, the Château Royal de Collioure and the Fort Saint-Elme stronghold, were improved by the military engineer Vauban during the reign of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, Collioure was besieged and occupied by the Spanish troops in 1793, marking the last Spanish attempt to take the city. The blockade was broken a year later by general Jacques François Dugommier.

Collioure AOC

Collioure is an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) for French wines situated around the town of Collioure in the Roussillon wine region of France. Red, rosé and a few white wines are produced-the reds from Grenache noir, Mourvèdre, Syrah, Carignan and Cinsaut grapes; the white are made from a blend of from Grenache blanc and Grenache gris. The boundaries of the AOC are identical with the Banyuls AOC as many of the grapes grown in Collioure destined for use in the fortified Vins doux naturels of the region. The grapes that do not get used for Banyuls are then produced as non-fortified still wines under the Collioure AOC.

History

Viticulture was likely introduced to the area soon after the ancient Greeks introduced winemaking to the Languedoc are in the 6th century BC. Under the Romans, viticulture spread throughout the area with the nearby cities of Narbonne, Carcassonne and Perpignan being major centers for the trade of Roussillon wine from areas like Collioure. For a large part of its history, the region has been under Spanish rule and was even a part of the Catalonia region until the mid-17th century. Like other Roussillon wine regions, this Spanish influence can be seen in the types of wines produced here. Even today, wine experts such as Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson describe the wines of Collioure as being more like Spanish wines in profile than French.