More
often than ever, wine growers no longer have their feet firmly planted
in the ground, or more exactly in their soil. They seem to be too
busy wandering throughout the world, spreading the good word. Today's
"great wine growers" are top managers, experts in marketing.
Sometimes they are merely investors. Most of the time and at best,
they are executive managers, giving instructions to those in charge
of the actual growing, wine cellar owners who discover their wine
once it is bottled and finished.
We
are light-years away from this approach.
Being
a wine grower, for us, is by no means a job like any other: it
is closer to a vocation, a devouring passion that calls upon an intimate
connection with the vines.
•
How can we convert into wine the grapes if we have not tended them
all year ?
• How can we assess the strengths and weaknesses of a vintage
if we have not felt the climatic variations with its ups and downs ?
• How can we best choose the best winemaking process if we
don't know how those grapes grew and developed ?
• How can we improve growing methods if we don't know the kind
of impact they will have on the wine ?
’Being
a wine grower means knowing one's vineyard by heart: knowing every
individual vine, feeling the stress of a drought like in 2003 or the
rains of 2002, as if we were the plant itself.
Being
a wine grower is having both feet deeply rooted in one's land,
in its very soil, feeling what the vine feels, and adapting the winemaking
process to the different fruits.
Being
a wine grower is not applying scientific methods blindly :
the heart of wine growing is man, with his instinct, passion, intuition,
and improvisation.
This
is perhaps the main difference between wines that are technically
perfect and wines that have a soul.
Wine
growing is one of the rare activities in the world in which it is
not necessary to be a huge corporation to be well-known. On the contrary,
we can remain small craftsmen and propose unique wines in small quantities,
for a clientele of passionate wine lovers who don't care for standard
products but who seek wines with a genuine character, a powerful identity.
We
don't wish to be liked by everyone, but we do strive to remain and
assert who we are...
