The origins of the important wine trading and wine producing house Louis Latour, with its headquarters in Beaune, Burgundy, go back to 1768, when Jean Latour planted vines in the commune of Aloxe-Corton (at that time it was still called Aloxe). However, his ancestors had already been growing grapes east of the town of Beaune from the beginning of the 16th century. The year 1797 is considered to be the year of the company's foundation, which meant that the 200th anniversary could be celebrated in 1997. The founder's son Louis Latour I expanded the estate to include vineyards in the Chambertin, Montrachet and Romanée-Saint-Vivant municipalities and vineyards. It was not until much later that the family also began trading in wine, when Louis Latour III bought the Lamarosse trading house in 1867. In 1891, the Château Corton-Grancey (15 ha) with cellar facilities and renowned sites around the famous Corton mountain was acquired. The third Louis is also credited with recognising the importance of the Corton mountain for white wines. After phylloxera destroyed the Aligoté and Pinot Noir stocks, he planted Chardonnay in what is now the Grand Cru site of Corton-Charlemagne.
White wines are produced in cooperation with the Lugny winegrowers' cooperative in the Mâconnais region. After the lifting of American Prohibition, Latour exported the white wine now known as Pouilly-Fuissé (then Grand Pouilly) from here to the USA in the 1930s. In the early 1980s, Latour also became active in the Ardèche countryside on the right bank of the Rhône. A total of 180 contract winegrowers supply Chardonnay grapes from 380 hectares of vineyards, which are processed into IGP wines) in the Latour winery in Alba. At the end of the 1980s, vineyards were purchased in the Var département in Provence; the red wines produced there from Pinot Noir are marketed under Domaine de Valmoissine. The red wines are subjected to a short pasteurisation process lasting only a few seconds (not without controversy). The estate owns around 50 hectares of vines. Today, the house is run by Louis-Fabrice Latour (son of Louis Latour VI), already the eighth generation of the family. There is no family connection with Château Latour in Pauillac-Médoc.
