The Age of the Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment

The 16th century was a time of social and economic depression but the 17th century brought the Age of Enlightenment and marked great economic growth and expansion of the towns.

The wine trade grew and was taken over by merchants (who increased wine exports) and technological changes began
to appear :
- the revival in metalworking with the ironworks at Buffon, near Montbard.

Scholarship and culture also thrived :
- Crébillon, Rameau, Piron and the learned societies.

The ""Académie de Dijon'' was founded in 1740 and ten years later it went on to award a prize to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's first speech.

The French Revolution saw the administrative separation of Burgundy into ''départements'' (like everywhere else in France). The great estates that belonged to the Church (e.g. the château du Clos de Vougeot) were taken over by the "bourgeois" (people from the middle classes)

Life in the Côte-d'Or was fairly quiet until the middle of the 19th century when the arrival of the railways and the canals revived its fortunes.

Phylloxera laid waste to the vineyards which were never replanted in their previous numbers, but the excellent reputation of Burgundy wine was not lost and continues to this day.

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