The image above shows the Château de clos de Vougeot vineyard in France. The building in the background was once a Cistercian Monastery that housed monks for hundreds of years. This particular site is one of the earliest known places where monks began wine making.

Today, Cistercian Trappist Monks still make wine, and they even practice the discipline of Silence, meaning they only speak when necessary. They eat meals in silence, work in silence, and forbid what they call, ‘idle talk,’ except during special occasions.

Hospitality, Manual Labor, Prayer, Simplicity, and Solitude are the five pillars of Monastic Life.

Cistercian Trappist Monks applied these principles to wine making in France, hundreds of years ago. Being disciplined record keepers, they began noting a strange occurrence in their wines. Different soils and hillsides that grew the same type of grapes, were producing very different wines. What they discovered was the importance of soil composition and vine placement in wine making. This gave birth to the strict guidelines of wine production we’re familiar with today.