This material is prepared based on the original historical research from the section "Histoire de l'ampélographie" ("History of Ampelography") authored by Ch. Tallavignes, published in the first volume of the classic "Ampélographie" edited by P. Viala and V. Vermorel (Macon, 1901–1910).

Imperial Scale: The Project of Napoleon I and Count Chaptal

The monumental ampelographic campaign of Abbé Rozier and the widespread public validation of agricultural science at the close of the 18th century bore long-awaited fruit in the following century. At the turn of the century, the study of vine varieties reached an unprecedented scale in France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. The advancement of the science was tightly bound up with the turbulent upheavals of viticulture itself, which regularly endured severe economic and biological crises. Consequently, the history of 19th-century ampelography progressed in powerful, wave-like surges.

During the era of the First Empire, many of Rozier's associates achieved elevated state positions. The prominent scientist, Doctor of Medicine and Professor of Chemistry Jean-Antoine Chaptal, elevated to the title of Count of Chanteloup, became the Minister of the Interior under Napoleon I Bonaparte. In 1801 (Year X of the Republic), Chaptal published his foundational "Theoretical and Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of the Vine," which relied extensively on Rozier's unfinished manuscripts. Being more of a research chemist and oenologist than a field viticulturist, Chaptal was nevertheless ignited by the idea of fulfilling his late friend's long-standing dream — to completely eradicate the chaos in grape variety naming across the entire French Empire.

Utilizing the full extent of his rigid ministerial authority, Chaptal issued an official decree commanding the prefects of absolutely every department of the empire to immediately collect and dispatch to Paris cuttings (boutures) of all vine varieties cultivated in their territories. Responsible for the reception, planting, and systematic scientific recording of this colossal mass of plants was the minister's close friend — the prominent botanist Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc (1759–1828), who was appointed General Inspector of Government Nurseries of France.

The Luxembourg Garden: The Central Nursery and Redouté's Masterpieces

The celebrated Luxembourg Garden in Paris was selected as the base for establishing the central ampelographic collection. Its territory was expanded by annexing the ancient gardens of the Carthusian monastery (Chartreux) on Rue d'Enfer, whose unique collection of fruit trees had been rescued by the scientists Thouin and Hervy during the harshest years of the Revolutionary Terror. Bosc, armed with ministerial powers, took charge of the Luxembourg nursery and began forming a large-scale live collection destined to become a benchmark for European science.

Simultaneously with the vineyard layout, Count Chaptal launched an unprecedented artistic campaign. He hired the greatest masters of the era to capture the varietal characteristics of the vine on paper with absolute botanical precision. Leading this effort was the legendary painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté, draftsman for the Academy of Sciences and co-author of Duhamel. The prominent artists A. Poiteau, P. Bessa, P. Turpin, and Thérèse Baudry de Balzac also took part in this work. The masters created masterpieces of incredible beauty: delicate watercolors with jeweler's precision conveyed the transparency of ripe berries, the velvet texture of varietal bloom (pruine), and the characteristic venation of grape leaves.

To great regret, this grand imperial project, like Rozier's undertakings, encountered internal scientific contradictions and bureaucratic indifference. Louis Bosc, who managed the Luxembourg collection for over twenty years, shared at heart the erroneous views of Dussieux. He did not believe in the relative fixity of varietal traits under vegetative propagation and asserted that a grape variety continuously and chaotically mutates under the influence of external factors. Bosc wrote in 1809: "The longer cultivated plants have been grown by man, even in a single locality, the more varieties they offer. The vine, whose earliest cultivation is lost in the night of time, must have furnished an immense number... When one notes the extent of the country where it is grown at this moment, the difference of their soil, climate, exposure, and method of cultivation, one must believe that these varieties increase every day."

An obvious paradox arose: Bosc was gathering grape varieties from all over the world in Paris, while being predefined that under the climate of Paris they would inevitably lose their initial character. Attempting to justify this, he claimed that the alterations would only significantly affect the flavor of southern berries due to the lack of intense and durable summer heat, while in twenty years he would still be able to unerringly distinguish closely related grape varieties, because "on what ground would one dare assume that an oval grain will become round, or smooth leaves turn bristly?"

The Neglect of the Nursery and the Rescue of Redouté's Lost Atlas

The ambitious operational framework of Louis Bosc, which included maintaining three parallel ledgers (a book of synonyms, a book of absolute descriptions, and a synoptic reference table), proved to be too heavy a burden. Due to administrative confusion, chaos rapidly enveloped the Luxembourg collection nursery. Bosc undertook frequent study missions across the provinces but was unable to definitively resolve the varietal confusion either in Paris or in the regions. Following his passing in 1828, the unique vineyard experienced alternating periods of brief ministerial support (under the Count de Champagny and Minister Decazes) and complete neglect. Management of the plot was entrusted to the gardener Hardy, whose inaccurate 1844 catalogue clearly demonstrated his utter indifference to ampelographic science.

By 1852, the Luxembourg grape variety collection remained impressive: the scientist Bouchardat counted 2,050 names within it (many of which were common duplicates), represented by 4,100 live vine bushes. However, during the era of the Second Empire, the famous nursery was condemned to destruction — its remnants were crudely transferred to the Acclimatization Garden in the Bois de Boulogne, where the collection was completely diluted and lost without ever rendering the expected benefits to science.

The sole priceless treasure to survive from this large-scale imperial undertaking was the illustrated vine atlas. For a long time, it was believed that the unique drawings shared the tragic fate of Rozier's lost papers. However, Ch. Tallavignes personally tracked them down in the archives of the National Agricultural Society of France, where they had been gathering dust in a sealed cardboard box for decades. From that lost imperial commission, 66 magnificent colored plates (planches) survived: 42 pieces by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (including sheets by his brother Henri-Joseph), 15 by Alphonse Poiteau, 5 by Pierre Turpin, 3 by Thérèse Baudry de Balzac, and 1 by Pancrace Bessa. This illustrated atlas became the central material monument of the Napoleonic era, preserving the precise appearance of such vines as Pineau de Bourgogne (Pineau à la demoiselle), Meunier, Sauvmireau (Gouais), Mourvèdre noir, Piquant Paul, Carignan, Prunelard, Chasselas rouge, and Gros Guillaume.

The Constellation of France's Regional Ampelographers (1808–1828)

While Bosc's central Parisian project suffered an administrative collapse, a whole constellation of brilliant practicing researchers emerged across the French provinces, enriching the science with precise local catalogues. Near Paris, Jumilhac (1802) compiled a memorandum on the vine varieties of the Seine-et-Oise department, Cournol, Cadet de Vaux, and Sageret described the once-famous Parisian vineyards, and Calvel published a practical manual in 1811 on the cultivation of the celebrated Chasselas variety. At the same time, Martinet dispatched to Bosc highly detailed morphological descriptions of the 24 finest grape varieties of Châtellerault.

In other winemaking regions of France, breakthroughs were achieved by the following authors:

  • Burgundy and Côte-d'Or Region: The distinguished Doctor Morelot published highly precise oenological statistics for Beaune in 1825 and 1831, recording and describing the composition of local vines.
  • East and Jura Region: Professor Droz compiled a catalogue of Besançon's vineyards, Marc described the vines of Haute-Saône (1808), and Thomas Dauphin issued a memorandum in 1809 containing detailed descriptions of twelve Jura grape varieties, which Bosc highly appreciated. They are joined by the popular pamphlets of Abbé Thomassin (1816), Manuel Jaunez for the Moselle (1816), and the statistics on 26 varieties of Arbois by Doctor Dumont (1826).
  • Auvergne and South Region: Aubergier presented a memorandum to the Academy of Sciences on the vines of his country (1820) and became the first in history to isolate a pure culture of wine yeast (Saccharomyces vini). In the south, the former prefect of Gard, J.-B. Dubois, published an excellent memorandum in 1806 on the grape varieties of the Côte du Rhône, while Paris recorded the varietal composition of Tarascon in 1811.

Lenoir's Manifesto and Methods for Combating Naming Chaos

During this same period, two essential theoretical works were published: Cavoleau's "French Oenology" (which won the Grand Prix in Statistics from the Institute in 1827) and B.-A. Lenoir's "Treatise on the Culture of the Vine" (1828). Lenoir emerged as a radical proponent of the continuous mutability theory of the vine. He asserted that vegetative propagation is incapable of indefinitely retaining varietal traits, and grape varieties gradually but inevitably mutate when transferred to a different climate or different soils. It was by this varietal mutation that he explained the radical differences between the vines of the North and the South.

Lenoir described instances of spontaneous bud mutations in detail, where the color or shape of berries suddenly altered on a single shoot or cluster. From this, he drew a striking and prophetic conclusion for his era: in 1828, Lenoir officially called upon the scientists of France to initiate large-scale experiments on **grafting European grape varieties onto American wild vines** to obtain new, resistant strains. Having noted the near-complete failure of Bosc's Luxembourg project, Lenoir urged the government to abandon the concept of a single central nursery. He fully endorsed the progressive method of Delavau (1821), which demanded an end to indiscriminate name gathering and required dividing all ampelographic work by strict geographical basins and cantons, establishing local collection schools in each to uncover regional synonyms.

The Verdict of the First Third of the 19th Century: Following Lenoir, who compiled detailed variety records for 58 departments of France, the Gironde Commission of the Court of Justice, led by Aubarède, Laterrade, and Petit-Lafitte, joined the study of synonyms. In 1824, on the lands of Château Carbonnieux near Bordeaux, belonging to Bouchereau, they founded the famous "School of Synonyms." Thanks to the administrative support of the prefect, Baron d'Haussez, and shipments from the remnants of the Luxembourg garden, this nursery contained 400 varieties by 1289 and expanded to 800 distinct vine strains by 1834. French science achieved a major practical breakthrough, drawing tightly close to the era of Count Odart's great "Universal Ampelography."