Old wine map of La Cote De Nuits, Burgundy, 1953

The 1953 wine map of La Côte de Nuits stands as a refined synthesis of geography, viticulture, and post-war French cartographic art. Produced during a period when Burgundy was reasserting its prestige on the international wine market, the map presents the narrow limestone escarpment of the Côte d’Or as both a physical landscape and a hierarchy of taste. Stretching from Marsannay in the north to Nuits-Saint-Georges in the south, it traces the slender ribbon of vineyards that produce some of the most celebrated Pinot Noir wines in the world.

The visual style reflects the mid-century French tradition of illustrated oenological maps: hand-drawn, richly colored, and deliberately romantic. Villages such as Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-Saint-Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, Vougeot, and Vosne-Romanée are shown clustered along the Route Nationale 74 and the railway line, emphasizing how terroir, transport, and commerce were inseparable. Individual vineyard zones are differentiated by color, marking Grands Crus, Premiers Crus, and lesser climats in a visual hierarchy that mirrors Burgundy’s legally codified appellation system.

Beyond technical accuracy, the 1953 map conveys ideology. Burgundy is presented as an ordered, almost feudal landscape of enclosed parcels, where centuries of labor have extracted subtle distinctions from a single grape variety and a continuous slope of rock and soil. Decorative elements—coats of arms, grapevines, barrels, and a distant château—link wine to heritage and national identity.

Created less than a decade after the end of the Second World War, the map also carries a quiet message of cultural recovery. It asserts continuity, stability, and excellence in a France rebuilding its global reputation. In this sense, the 1953 La Côte de Nuits map is not merely a guide to vineyards, but a visual declaration that Burgundy remains one of the enduring capitals of fine wine.