Our history
What if in the heart of an ancient, wild and hard Ardeche was the origin of great and tasty wines? The birth of today's French wine culture?
Geographical location and history
Before all the pleasure of the taste buds, it is the history that we must taste.
For more than 2,000 years the land of Alba la Romaine has been producing great wines and our family has been contributing to this wonderful history for 5 generations.
The Domaines des Cades offers you a return to the past: traditions, Roman festivals full of passion, fruit and luxurious beverages.
Alba La romaine, the heart of a passion
In Roman times, the town was called Alba Helviorum, the capital of the Helvians, and was conquered by the Romans in the 1st century, who in turn made it the capital of the conquered lands.
The Roman conquest brought the cultivation of vines and the wine trade to the city. Alba therefore played a major role in the establishment of the vineyard. L. Gout and J. Volane state in the chapter of their History of the Ardèche (1907) devoted to "Alba, Roman capital" that "the main trade of the city was that of wine".
"In Alba, a vine was invented that loses its flower within a day and is therefore very robust. It is called Carbunica and now the whole province plants it". So wrote Pliny the Elder 2 (1st century Roman writer and naturalist) in 65 AD, proving that there were vines in Helvetia at that time.
Remains of the Roman theatre in Alba la Romaine
Halfway between the northern slopes of the Rhône and the sunny pebble basins of the Popes, the Ardèche opens up its heart through a wild valley full of history.
Beneath the cool basaltic flows of the Coirons, an exceptional terroir of gravelly limestone in the sun of the Midi has always rested on Mont Juliau.
Caesar gathered his troops here to conquer Gaul. His presence gave us refinement, culture and vines.
With these preserved spaces, these grandiose landscapes, this fierce and independent spirit, nature and the will of men have delicately shaped these unique places.
And it is here, on the slopes of Juliau, that the Domaine des Cades humbly accompanies its land in the creation of exceptional wines.
