Classification of vineyards

Based on the "Instruction du 24. nov. 1802" of the French tax and finance ministry a new classification of vineyards was started in Napoleon's times. For the first time in history this classification is based on the fact that "the location with the highest yield is not necessarily the best" and that the "yield in high-quality vineyards is often extremely low either due to the consistency of the soil or due to the nature of the vine itself". After 1815 the Prussians luckily adopted this idea and completed the classification in the 1840s. With extreme precision and broad expertise all vineyards were divided into eight different groups. Here it was often the case that one plot was divided into two or even three different groups.

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