On the right bank of the Dordogne, the existence of Port Sainte Foy is directly linked to the 1255th century bastide, Sainte-Foy en Agenais, founded in XNUMX by Alphonse de Poitiers, brother of King Saint-Louis.
Deep water port of Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, this small village of fishermen and artisans and traders in the water, vine and wine trades, became the Commune of Port-Sainte-Foy with the merger of the 3 parishes of Canet, Tizac and La Rouquette, and more recently, Port-Sainte-Foy-et-Ponchapt with that of Ponchapt in 1960. Resulting from the river and its activities, the Commune was a place of passage and life from the dawn of humanity as evidenced by the numerous flints or hearths discovered, as well as the remarkable Gallo-Roman mosaics of Canet.
The village experienced its artisanal and commercial peak with the golden age of inland shipping on the Dordogne; an intense seafaring life then enlivened the quays and shops bordering the “river-hope”: oak and chestnut wood coming from the high country, wines leaving for the ocean gateway.
With the arrival of the railway, then road development and finally the evolution of mass distribution, agriculture is now confined to the hillsides; viticulture remains by tradition the main and almost only component. The reds benefit from the Bergerac AOC appellation and the whites from the Montravel and Côtes de Montravel appellations. The valley has become an area of commercial activity and residence.
The town of Port-Sainte-Foy-et-Ponchapt is twinned with Plobsheim in Alsace. The two towns have been forging bonds of friendship and fraternity since 1940, when many families from Plobsheim were welcomed in Port-Sainte-Foy in their exile against the German occupiers.
