With the Climats, UNESCO pays tribute to a French wine-growing landscape and its centuries-old culture in the Burgundy region. The Climats are precisely demarcated, small-scale vineyards that stretch over 60 kilometers on the slopes of the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune between Dijon and Santenay and, taken together, look like a large mosaic.
Each individual location differs from the other due to the slightly different natural conditions such as slope orientation, soil conditions, lighting conditions, the local microclimate, the grape varieties and, last but not least, the cultivation methods that have been specifically cultivated for 2000 years.
Each of the more than 1000 climats has its own story and flavor. Great cru wines are associated with the name of Climats. These include, for example, Chambertin, Clos de Vougeot, Corton, Musigny or Grand Clos des Epenots. Wine connoisseurs can draw conclusions about the respective climate from the taste.
According to philosophynearby, the vineyards in the vineyards are only called “climats” in Burgundy, otherwise the term “terroirs” is used in France (which translates as “region” or “landscape”).
The world heritage consists of two parts. On the one hand, there are the vineyards themselves and the production units associated with them, including the villages and the city of Beaune, which is not only the center of the Côte de Beaune wine-growing region, but also has a magnificent old town. The second part includes the old town of Dijon, capital of the Burgundy region, wine trading center and famous for its mustard. UNESCO honors Dijon separately insofar as the city, in its function as a political center, significantly shaped and regulated the climat system.
The Climats are considered by UNESCO to be an excellent example of viticulture and wine production since the High Middle Ages.
Climats in Burgundy: facts
| Official title: | Climats in Burgundy |
| Cultural monument: | around 1000 individual vineyards with specific characteristics such as slope orientation, microclimate, soil conditions, grape varieties; The craftsmanship of the respective climates also differs from one another through millennia-old traditions. |
| Continent: | Europe |
| Country: | France |
| Location: | 60 km long slopes between Dijon and Santenay, Burgundy region |
| Appointment: | 2015 |
| Meaning: | excellent example of viticulture and wine production since the high Middle Ages |
Chauvet cave
Chauvet cave [ ʃ o vε- ], French Chauvet Cave [ gr ɔ t ] before Combe d’Arc [ k ɔ b dark, “Arches canyon” ], in the basin of Estre, at the entrance to the Ardèche Gorge (about 30 km southwest of Montélimar), France, cave with paleolithic rock paintings discovered in December 1994. Discovered by three French speleologists and named after one of them (Jean-Marie Chauvet) named cave has around 300 excellently preserved paintings, mostly animal representations in reddish ocher or black: rhinos, big cats (lionesses or leopards) and bears, as well as ibex, mammoths, deer, horses, bison as well as hyenas and owls. Handprints and dot fields also appear.
Apart from the animals (bear, wild cat and rhinoceros) that are otherwise not the focus of cave paintings, French experts such as Jean Clottes (* 1933) emphasize the staggering of the animals as stylistically unusual. Some black pictures painted with charcoal in the rear part of the cave could be dated using the C-14 (radiocarbon method). According to this, their age is estimated at 30,940 to 32,410 years (culture stage of the Aurignacien), they are therefore 10,000 to 15,000 years older than the comparable rock art z. B. in the caves of Altamira and Lascaux. Chunks of charcoal from various parts of the cave were between 29,000 and 22,800 years old; some pictures could also come from a later time when the cave was still inhabited by people.
In 2014, the Chauvet Cave was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. For conservation reasons, the cave is only accessible for scientific research for a few weeks a year; it is completely closed to tourists. Therefore, since 2010, a replica of the cave, which opened in 2015, has been created two kilometers away.
