The Cistercian monks and wine: how an order of farmers shaped Burgundy and the Rhine

The short answer: the Cistercians didn't bring wine to Europe. The Romans had planted vines in Burgundy and along the Rhine centuries earlier. What the monks did was farm the same plots, with discipline, for hundreds of years, and build estates that still define great wine: the Clos de Vougeot in Burgundy and Kloster Eberbach in the Rheingau. Their legacy is an idea every sommelier lives by: a precise place makes a precise wine.

Who were the Cistercians?

A reform movement of Benedictine monks. In 1098 a group led by Robert of Molesme founded a new monastery at Cîteaux, near Dijon; the name Cistercian comes from Cistercium, its Latin name. Around 1112 a young nobleman called Bernard arrived with about thirty companions, and in 1115 he founded the abbey of Clairvaux. Under Bernard of Clairvaux the order spread across Europe.

They followed the Rule of St Benedict to the letter: prayer, simplicity and work with their own hands. Each abbey aimed to feed itself, and much of the farm work was done by lay brothers on outlying farms called granges. Wine was needed for Mass and for guests, and good wine could be sold. So the monks became serious growers.

Burgundy: the Clos de Vougeot

• In the early 12th century, monks from Cîteaux began building an estate at Vougeot from gifts of land, and joined the plots into one clos, a vineyard enclosed by a wall. The Clos is first mentioned in writing in 1212.
• Their wine farm still stands: the medieval vat house with its four great presses, and the great cellar. An abbot of Cîteaux added a Renaissance château in 1551.
• The monks kept it until the French Revolution.
• Since the 1940s the Château du Clos de Vougeot has been the home of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, Burgundy's wine brotherhood. It is open to visitors.

Burgundy's climats are its precisely marked, named vineyard plots. The association that looks after them calls the Clos de Vougeot the invention of this model, in the 12th century, and UNESCO made the Climats a World Heritage Site in 2015. Cistercian women farmed here too: the nuns of the abbey of Tart held the Clos de Tart, in Morey-Saint-Denis, from the 12th century until the Revolution.

Chablis: the monks of Pontigny

North of Chablis stands the abbey of Pontigny, founded in 1114 as one of the first daughter houses of Cîteaux. Its monks received vineyards in Chablis and helped develop them, and their great abbey church still stands. You'll often hear that they brought Chardonnay to Chablis. It's a nice story; nobody can prove it.

The Rheingau: Kloster Eberbach

• Founded in 1136 as a Cistercian abbey in the line of Clairvaux, in the hills above the Rhine.
• The Steinberg vineyard has belonged to Eberbach since 1239. In the 18th century the monks enclosed all of it with a stone wall, a German clos.
• A wine business: the estate says that by the 15th century it was the largest winery in the German-speaking lands, with wine bringing up to three quarters of the abbey's income.
• The Cabinet cellar: in 1730 the monks set aside a cellar for their most precious wines. The estate calls it the birthplace of the word later written on labels as Kabinett. Today the word means something else: the lightest of Germany's Prädikat levels.
• After the monks: the abbey was dissolved in 1803. Its wine estate carries on as the Hessische Staatsweingüter Kloster Eberbach, the Hessian state wine estates.
• On screen: the interiors of the film The Name of the Rose were shot there in 1985.

Austria: Heiligenkreuz and Thallern

In 1141 the Cistercian abbey of Heiligenkreuz, in the Vienna Woods, was given the village of Thallern, in today's Thermenregion. Its wine estate, the Freigut Thallern, is one of the oldest in Austria and still belongs to the abbey.

Myths to drop

• “They were the first to plant vines in Europe.” No. Greeks and Romans spread the vine long before. Burgundy and the Rhine were growing grapes in Roman times.
• “They invented terroir.” Nobody invented it. Roman writers already noticed that place changes wine: Pliny the Elder wrote that the country and the soil matter more than the grape. The monks' gift was patience: the same plots, worked and watched for centuries.
• “They tasted the soil.” A lovely story, often told. There's no evidence for it.

Why it still matters on your label

When a label names a walled vineyard such as Clos de Vougeot or Clos de Tart, a single great site such as the Steinberg, or a word such as Kabinett, you are reading monastic history. Not every great vineyard was made by monks. But the idea that this plot, not just this grape, makes this wine owes a great deal to them.

For the shorter story, read the monks who mapped Burgundy by foot. Studying Burgundy for an exam? Start with my Burgundy study guide.

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