Coopérative vinicole

The wine cooperative Since the Middle Ages, viticulture has shaped the landscape and conditioned the enrichment of the inhabitants of the town and the area of Marignane A very early "muscatelle" wine was produced here in the 1460s, followed by white muscatel wines that were renowned throughout the region in the 18th century There are numerous heritage testimonies about the seigneurial domains, the large vineyard areas, the vaulted rooms with fermentation vats, a wine cellar in the château in the 16th century, and the wine-making process, an image of which can be found on a revolutionary ex-voto kept in the Notre-Dame de Pitié chapel In the 20th century, a dozen winegrowers joined forces to found the wine cooperative. The design of the building was entrusted in 1925 to the architect Hourst, a specialist in this category (he was found in Pélissanne, Puy-Sainte-Réparade, Eguilles and many other communes), relayed by the contractor Célestin Coq for the implementation. It was quickly enlarged in 1929 by the architect Grava and the contractor Albert Calvin, just before the old distillery was transformed into a vat house in 1933 Between 1953 and 1957, the Castel agency, in association with Gaston and his son Auguste, known as Ello, built an extension with new vats, signing here the plans for one of the twenty or so Marignane buildings bearing their name As for the shop, it dates from 1962 The central body, which houses the accommodation on the first floor, is distinguished by its pediment with a gendarme hat crowning a southern facade coloured red. The south-west facing building continues with an extension of the original vat house to the north, where the shop opens out onto a weighbridge to the south-east Listed in the supplementary inventory of historical monuments in 1986, it is now a warehouse of the agricultural cooperative of Berre, Les Vignerons de Mistral, with a beautiful sales area for wines (AOC Côteaux d'Aix-en-Provence and IGP vins de Provence) and delicatessen products. Source Patrick Varrot, art historian - February 2021