The origins of French wine

Our Traveller enjoys a glass or two of wine in a local tavern. But what are the origins of French wine?

Marseilles – originally Massalia -  was founded in 600 BC by the Phocaeans, a Greek naval power. There, the Phocaeans introduced the grapevine, making Provence the first French wine region. Four centuries later, the Romans arrived and set up the Provincia Romana, which became Provence: as the Roman empire expanded, they took vines and their wine-making skills with them, creating other wine-producing areas around France. 

Grape-growing in France boomed in the 5^th to 12^th centuries, becoming a large economic interest for religious communities and, a little later, for the aristocracy.  

Most French vineyards were destroyed in the 1880s by an American parasite which attacked the roots of the vines, and it took years to build up the wine region again – maybe this is why the Traveller had brought his own wine to the tavern, produced (perhaps) by his own family years before?