Mas des Brun

"Pruning" our centenaries olive trees

 

Tanguy finishing pruning our oldest olive tree, 500 years old as he estimates...

Dear Friends,

It has been a little while since I have communicated about our working project at Mas des Brun. A US wine trip to help promote the wines of Domaine Rouge-Bleu and the big project to "prune" our dear multi centinary olive trees explain this.

It also took me a while before finding the right team. 120 trees which have been left alone for 20-30 years needed the right people. Finally, I met with Tanguy who came with Thomas who are two tree passionate people and who not only accomplished a physical task but also acts of Love to those very old babies.

Your servitor, cutting the bushes around an olive tree

After so many years left alone, our trees were totally invaded by bushes, sometimes even higher than the olive trees and the first task was to get rid of those in order to access them. Then, the most used tool was not a clipper but a chainsaw...

Before "hair cut"

After "hair cut" !

I, of course, was not pruning (I was actually mostly cutting and pulling out those bushes) but I understood the technique which is to re shape the tree so that the branches are wildly spaced, mostly horizontal rather than vertical and all around the tree. As our ancestors say, "une hirondelle doit pouvoir traverser le feuillage de l'olivier" - The swallow should be able to cross the leaves of the olive tree.

Tanguy pruning... Notice the height of the olive tree behind !

As you can see below, there is nothing much left after the "pruning" but new leaves will soon come out and even if our 2013 crop will be tiny, we will be able to harvest a decent amount of olives in November 2014 and a full one in 2015...when I will also harvest our first grapes.

 

Our future vine parcel currently planted with a mix of organic cereals. Notice the olive trees on the background

Talking about grapes, our future vine parcel is now developing with its cereals. The fair amount of rain received this Spring is a wonderful gift for them to grow. We now would enjoy some sun and warmer temperatures...after all, we are by the Mediterranean sea !

At last, please welcome 4 bee hives in the Mas des Brun family. Bees are now having fun foraging the numerous wild flowers (rosemary, thyme, fennel...) we luckily have in the property. In a couple weeks, I will install the upper frames in order to let them deposit the delicious honey that we will get.

Cheers,

Jean-Marc @ Mas des Brun

PS :
- If you enjoy olive oil, you will certainly enjoy this story :
The Olive Farm: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Olive Oil in the South of France

- If you would like to join us for a unique wine cruise experience, Kristi and I will be the hosts of the AMA Waterways Seine Wine Cruise Next November 2013. I will be spreading my wine love passion and we will share very good bottles of wines carefully selected.

 

Preparing the precious land

Dear Friends,

I was ready to plow out future vine parcel when a shepherd came to us and asked if we would be willing to let their tribe mow. I could not dream for a better way to amend and prepare our dear land so I gladly accepted

 

Right after, a large tractor came to plow at about one foot down in order to get some fertile earth and then I sowed a mix of 5 organic cereals and herbs (oat, wheat, rye, barley and phacelia) in order to bring some green fertilizer to this land that has been resting for long time. I used phacelia as it also has a natural "desinfectant" power and I spread most of it where we took some trees off the parcel.

In order to avoid all the birds from the neighborhood pecking the precious seeds, I used my "new" 60 years old tractor to cover them, but I since I have seen many birds on the field after, I guess my work was not so efficient...

Luckily, we got some welcoming rains after and by now those seeds have germinated and the first stems are now coming out of the ground...

I just now have to wait and see those crops grow. We had a good amount of rains this fall and winter so I think they should be fine until I will cut them in August and put the new seeds on the soil in order to bring some natural fertilizer... before planting the vineyards...in Spring 2014.

 Cheers,

Jean-Marc

PS :

- I will visiting the US on the second half of March, pouring Rouge-Bleu wines. Here is the list of the places I will be, hoping to meet you there.

- If you would like to join us for a unique wine cruise experience, Kristi and I will be the hosts of the AMA Waterways Seine Wine Cruise Next November 2013. I will be spreading my wine love passion and we will share very good bottles of wines carefully selected.

First "rights" to plant

 

Nude parcel, almost ready to become a small vineyard...

 Dear Friends,

This year, Santa came a bit earlier as I received yesterday my first rights (51 acres - 1,3 acres) to plant. It still seems a bit surreal for me to think that I am going to farm grapes in Bandol but the reality is that this should actually  happen, sometimes... 

33 acres of Mourvèdre and 18 acres of Cinsault
in our "vine portofolio"

Sometimes because before planting vineyards and considering that you have the rights for, there are other obstacles to climb. First, I need to make sure I can buy on time those baby vines. Most of the good nurseries actually work with one year order as they customize the rootstock on your soil and your farming methods. As far as I am concerned, I need quite resisting rootstock since I will totally dryfarming our vines. Moreover, I plan to plant quite dense in order to create "competition" with vines around and oblige their roots to plunge down as deep as they can.

I therefore had anticipated this and already reserved some baby vines last September but at this point, I am not sure I will be able to get the rights plants.

Soil analysis of our parcel

 

Also, planting vines need to be done on a soil that is ready for this. The parcel that is supposed to be welcoming the new vines is quite ready I did not have to remove any trees but I would like to farm some crop before I plant, in order to amend naturally the soil with natural organic nutriments. The problem is that we are in the middle of winter and that, the deadline to plant is May. I now need to find the right crop (that I could seed in February and harvest in April), having in mind my soil analysis... If you have any inputs, they will be welcome.

A la prochaine...

Jean-Marc 

 

Working on...papers

 
Our new home, with beautiful centenary olive trees and, if the adminitration agrees, a future small vineyard

Dear readers,

I am so happy to continue sharing my wine passion with you. Like you may know, I have moved close to the Mediterranean and even if I am still deeply involved with Domaine Rouge-Bleu, I am starting a new wine venture near Bandol.

So, after almost 15 years of hunting for vineyards in Bandol, we are now the lucky owners of almost 20 acres of beautiful land and forest . We will turn some some into vineyards while restructuring a magnificent olive grove. But, before we start harvesting the first grapes, at least 4 long years will be spent... I will publish all the steps of this incredible venture which starts now with the hassle of...paperworks.

In France, you may have some land planted with a potential Appellation (Bandol for us), you can't just plant vineyards like that...

Click here to enlarge this "glamorous" form

First, you need to registrer yourself as a farmer with either main or a secondary activity. This form will assess you a SIRET number and you will then have to ask a for CVI (Casier Viticole Informatisé) number to another administration (customs). Then, you need to ask the permission to be a farmer to another administration and, if you are patient, you can ask the permission to buy rights to plant vines. And since the deadline for planting in 2013 was September 28th 2012 and since we purchased the property 08/29/2012, I did not have a lot of time to do this, considering also that I was fully harvesting at Domaine Rouge-Bleu...

But I was prepared to all this (thank god I was already used to this papers with Rouge-Bleu) so I have been able to file on time and it looks like we will get our first rights to plant in 2013. Not much (about 1,2 acre) but enough to keep me busy with a bit of farming next year.

But before planting, I will have to prepare the soil of the parcel that I have in mind and there again, a lot will have to be done...

Hasta la vista...

Jean-Marc