HISTORY

Domaine

JEAN BOURDY

41 RUE ST VINCENT - 39140 ARLAY

Tél : 03.84.85.03.70 - Télécopie 03.84.85.13.94

Messagerie : cavesjeanbourdy@wanadoo.fr

Nombre de visites

History

ANECDOTES

The grand parents and parents of Jean Cusin dug their cellar out of the Rocher du Monfied.

They built their first house over this cellar using the stones dug from the rock.

Our family still lives in this house today.

Jean Cusin then a magistrate, signed the first page of the municipal archives

Léonard Cusin (1638 – 1728) cultivated few acres of land and several ouvrées (a measurement derived from the amount of work done by one person in one day) of vines in the same areas we use today.

On the 19th February 1756, Etienne Cusin and his brother Joseph enlarged their cellars.

In 1781 the cellars were enlarged again, the year, engraved on the lintel is still visible today.

Claude Cusin bought sixteen large wooden casks of very good quality wine from Ruffey and sold them on.

The son of Jean Joseph Cusin, Etienne “the younger” (1784-1827) married Jeanne Louise Barbier (1791-1839) on 23rd January 1809. A bottle from the year of his baptism is still kept in our cellar.

During this period, not helped by the revolution, things went downhill. The only daughter to escape, Henriette Cusin, who was born 1st February 1822 married Sosthène Rameaux (1827 – 1909) on the 20th June 1849. They breathed new life into the cellars and expanded the cultivated areas. Sadly, the phylloxera infestation arrived between 1870 and 1880. In 1847, Arlay wine was sold for seven centimes a litre, then twelve.

The vineyard was completely destroyed by phylloxera. All the big Arlay households were ruined by trying to continue paying their workers, and they didn’t want to replant the vines. Happily for our family, on the 5th May 1871, Sosthène Rameaux married his eldest daughter to a son of one of the big winemaking families in Arlay, Jean Guillaume Germain, who took over the vineyard. Helped by his own son-in-law François Bourdy, who had married his daughter on 3rd October 1896, the vines and cellars took off again.

On top of everything else came the First World War. The price of wine rose from 35 centimes to 55 centimes. This was the first rise in the market for wine.

The war passed and business recommenced. The driving force for this was the family of Jean Bourdy and Andrée Rameaux. Born in 1904, after his studies Jean Bourdy decided to follow the paths opened within the world of wine and the vine and already taken by many generations. He extended the vineyards in Arlay and Château-Chalon, and added the appellations of Arbois and L’Etoile, thus being able to sell wines from the four Jura appellations. After the birth of their son Christian in 1928, he once again enlarged the cellars.

Wine exportation had started before the Second World War, notably to America and to the United Kingdom. In 1949, Monsieur Lamonzie, the agent for the World Diplomatic Corps, signed an exclusive agreement with Jean Bourdy for the commercialisation of Jura wines. Today, our wines are enjoyed in more than 130 capital cities.

Jean-François and Jean-Philippe Bourdy took over the domain.

Conversion to bio-dynamic methods.