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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
Aloha Jean-Marc .. I'm happy for you. Living by the Mediterranean with a beautiful parcel of land .. life is good! I look forward to tasting both your olive oil and the Espinasse Wines of Bandol!
Rédigé par : Bill Facker | 29/04/2013 à 19:47