Saint-Amour gets its evocative name from a Roman Soldier called Amor who had converted to Christianity. He fled the Swiss Valais massacres and sought refuge in Gaul where he founded a monastery on an outcrop overlooking the Saône Valley.
Vinegrowing has its roots in the Middle Ages with the religious order of the Chapter of Saint-Vincent in Mâcon.
During the French Revolution, specifically in 1793, the name Saint-Amour was replaced by Bellevue. This would only last 3 years before the commune took back its original name and became Saint-Amour-Bellevue.
Rubbing shoulders with the key players in the wine world as a barman in Paris before the Great War, Louis Dailly met his wife there. She was, in fact, from Saint-Vérand just a few kilometres from Saint-Amour, where he had been born. They got married and moved back to Saint-Amour to work the family estate.
At the time when the Beaujolais Cru appellation decrees were being promulgated (1936), the vineyards on the commune of Saint-Amour were still within the Beaujolais-Villages appellation area.
An activist convinced that the wine from this terroir also boasted the quality required to be given the same Cru Status, and with help from the directors at the INAO, Louis Dailly fought hard and the decree was finally signed in its turn. Saint-Amour’s birth certificate is dated 8th February 1946.
