The vineyard lives according to the seasons,discover our work and philosophy.
WINTER
It is in winter, when the vines are dormant, that we prune them manually. Pruning is crucial and requires know-how. We prune respecting the past of the vinestock and anticipating its future, while ensuring the control of the following year’s yield.
At the winery, we meticulously follow the ageing of our still wines in vats, casks or oak barrels, and the slow and long ageing of our sparkling wines, made using the traditional method.
SPRING
When the first buds and leaves appear, we must protect the vines from fungal diseases and pests.
Our vineyard is managed using sustainable farming, which aims at intervening only when the risk of diseases or pests is significant. The use of plant protection products is therefore limited in order to promote sustainable agriculture and the respect of the environment.
All our vineyard is protected against vine moths thanks to a collective biotechnical method called ‘sexual confusion’, which implies the use of racks placed in the vineyard in the spring, at the expense of insecticides. Spring is also the time for debudding and trellising in the vineyard.
In the cellar, wine ageing comes to an end. It is time to bottle the wines.
SUMMER
We rigorously control the health of our vines throughout the summer. Our priority is to protect the grapes until they reach full maturity.
In parallel, we work on canopy management, thanks to summer pruning for example. After flowering and fruitset, leaf stripping may be used to air the vinestock and contribute to the ripening of the grapes as they will get in direct contact with the rays of the sun.
Harvest time will be here soon… It is time to prepare the winery and cellar. Then comes August, which is when we take holidays and get some rest to make sure we come back as fit as fiddles for the harvest!
AUTUMN
Harvest starts earlier and earlier – we now begin picking grapes in late August or early September. From the first days of September, we sample grapes from various plots, in order to assess maturity and determine the dates of harvest.
We always start harvesting by hand Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc grapes used to produce Crémant de Loire. We then resort to a harvesting machine to pick the Chenin Blanc used for the sparkling Vouvray wines, some of our still Vouvray wines and the red grape varieties used to make our sparkling Touraine Rosé.
Harvesting goes on manually for Chenin Blanc grapes intended for Dry, Sweet and Super Sweet Vouvray wines, such as Ammonite, Les Larmes and L’Enchanteur. The grapes are sorted by hand on tables placed in the vineyard, at the end of the rows. The aim is to keep the best grapes in order to get as much sugar as possible, depending on the type of wine produced afterwards.
After picking, the grapes are immediately taken to the winery and pressed. Then the juices ferment in vats, oak barrels or casks.
“For our finest wines we have opted for hand harvest in order to preserve the integrity of our grapes.”