Philosophy and Methods
Our wine growing skills, together with the unique terroir of our vineyards, represent the precious legacy handed down to us by our ancestors: we recognize that this legacy is priceless and we are constantly striving to preserve it.Fundamental to our approach to vine-growing is our commitment to respecting our soil, our vines and the health and ripeness of our grapes, the latter being an essential prerequisite for the production of great wines.
"A great wine is one that is made from healthy grapes and that allows the unique character and complexity of its terroir to be expressed"
Both Grand Veneur and Clos de Sixte vineyards are grown in accordance with certified organic agricultural practices.
- The soils are maintained exclusively by light ploughing and fertilised with vegetal compost.
- We spray the vines (with organic-permitted treatments) only when there are justified risks to the health of the vines.
- The yields are low, or kept under control by green-harvesting. This intervention, carried out by hand in summer, enables us to be selective not only in terms of quantity, but also quality, by favouring those bunches which are the best exposed.
- In order to keep the bunches well aired, we thin out the leaves around the grapes by hand.
- The hand-picked harvest is sorted bunch by bunch.
- Following a careful maturation, the wines undergo only a light clarification so as to respect the unique terroir characteristics of each wine. A natural sediment deposit may appear, a sign of the richness and vitality of the wine.
Great wines that evolve through the passage of time:
A wine’s capacity to age allows one to distinguish fashionable “easy-drinking” wines from what one might term “wines with a great future”.
Can one really be satisfied with a wine that is promoted to the status of “Cru” but which does not stand the test of time? Or a wine that peaks prematurely after three or four years? Our outstanding terroirs allow us to produce powerful and well-balanced wines with excellent ageing capacity. A wine should be good from a very young age, but its true greatness can only be judged in the years to come by the test of time.
Can one really be satisfied with a wine that is promoted to the status of “Cru” but which does not stand the test of time? Or a wine that peaks prematurely after three or four years? Our outstanding terroirs allow us to produce powerful and well-balanced wines with excellent ageing capacity. A wine should be good from a very young age, but its true greatness can only be judged in the years to come by the test of time.