March 29th
As you may know, 5 month after our November 2nd commitment, we have finally signed along with 24 "investor friends" the final deal on March 19th to buy 20 acres of vines and a Provencal farm in order to create a bio winery near Cairanne, on the great "terroir" surrounded by Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Dentelles de Montmirail and Mont-Ventoux.
Since we we are now owners, we have started right away the remodeling of the farm, dividing it into a winery and a private part. The first thing we did is to create the cellar entry door.
Regarding the works on the vine, pruning is at last over, I have also crushed the vine shoots thanks to my pre-historical crushing machine and I have put on the soil the first bio-dynamie preparation made from cow dung ! In fact, whereas most of the local "vignerons" around me use their tractors to kill the soil with pesticides, this preparation is going to reinforce its microbial life... Do you think that a vine prefer to develop its root system : a living ground or a dead one ?
At last, today, I dug the soil in order to put it in contact with air also to permit the hopefully future rains to be better drained as deep as possible. During that day, I almost laid the tractor on its left side...
March 13th
Found some lots of ladybugs while pruning in the vines...which means that they have been treated with respect and that live is there !
March 14th
Vines are blooming...too early. Hope we won't get frost in a few weeks !
March 5th
Our business plan has been approved by two banks and we are now sure to close the deal which is scheduled March 19th. So I won't cry even if the vines do, but this is actually normal. We say that "la vigne pleure" when vegetation re-starts at spring time. This year, it is quite early given the warm temperatures we have had this winter.
Last week, I also had my first tractor drive lesson...
February 18th
Not much new this week...pruning is still the master word. I did receive our first biodynamie preparation that we will pour on the soil once we finish pruning, which should hopefully happen before the end of February.
February 12th
Because of a few rain drops, we have not been able to prepare one of the two parcels for its plantation and have decided to postpone this to the end of 2007. For this, we will plant some vegetation in order to regenerate the ground and let it graze this fall with sheep which will then produce some great natural dung.
Under and after the rain, we have continued pruning with the help of Laurent (video - 1 MO), a friend who tried the traditional pruning way with shears, and the more efficient one of Jérome (video - 2 MO) who speeds much more…
February 5th
Under a cold and very windy weather but with hopefully the sun, I continue pruning (video 2 MO).
This week, we will prepare a vine parcel for a future plantation by taking out of the soil of the dead roots of the former vines.
January 29th
Crazy weather...After almost summer last week, winter is back at its worse visage here : Cold and windy. We have pruned but with much less fun. In the meantime, we have started to receive our first materials and especially this antic vine shoot crusher.
January 22th
Last week, I have continued to prune our vines and we finished the 2,5 Ha of old Grenache parcel. I also had the pleasure to be proposed to maintain another 2,5 Ha of the same parcel which had been divided in two a few years ago. These 51 years old Grenache will definitely form the base of the future vine which insures even more its quality.
This week will be exciting since we are buying the tanks. As a commercial guy I have always sold and buying can be fun sometimes...More on this next week.
January 14th
I continue to prune our vines with the help of Jérome who owns vines in Cairanne. Since I have the chance to get lots of information from an experienced vine grower, I try then to think about the future "bio" fights against summer diseases (Oidium and "Vers de la Grappe"). Any ideas ?
This week was very warm for a winter day (I was in tee shirt the afternoon) and hopefully this won't continue because vines need to rest at this, time period and certainly not bloom. My days were sometimes distracted by the shows of the "Patrouille de France" (1 MB vidéo) which was practicing with their jets just above our vines !
In the meantime, I still consult to buy the concrete tanks in order to get the best deal, having in mind that we have space limits. And we have bought from the previous owner the tractor and all the material to work the vines.
January 4th
We are continuing pruning our vines with some cold beautiful weather where Mistral brings incredible colors at sunset.
