La vigne

“ We cultivate vine traditionally, being careful to the adequacy to plantl, climate and soil texture. The vintner is just the revealing of terroir. A famous wine is produced above all in the vineyard. ”

During winter, vine is resting. There is no visible indication of growth. At the moment, pruning begins, as soon as leaves are falled, until the end of march. The vintner prunes his vine to eliminate some vine shoot and select buds witch will grow and become fruit.

“ Prunning is a fundamental stage, it can be considered as the first quality stage. It’s at the moment that vintner regulates the yield and turns his vine. ”

During sping, a small crack occurs between the hard outermost bud scales as the bud begins to swell. The vintner is tying up vine shoots witch were not pruned. Then, buds burst and leaves have separated at the tip.

In june, lifting and trinning begin in arder to regulate vegetative area and increase maturity.

In July, shoots continue to expand and vine flowers will begin berries. It’s berry set.

August is the month of veraison : berries soft and change color as they begin to ripen. During maturity, acidity decrease, berries are soft and ripe colored as sugar content and berries size increase.
    
The quality of a wine depends of choice of harvest day. Thanks to chemical analysis and berries tasting, we try to determine  optimal maturity. We think optimal maturity is convergence between aromatic maturity, phenolic maturity (color, tannin) and technological maturity (sugar, acidity).

It’s time to harvest ! During september and October, we harvest at night, to conserve aromas and freshness of fruits.
At the end of the season, leaves fall and will blow away…

It being more than 1600 years that this vegetal cycle endures, and will continues so long as men in Gascony enjoy wine.