L'Hiver

Winter

November - December - January - February
As from November, the sap begins to wane in the vines and the plants enter their winter rest period. Pruning is essential to control the quantity and quality of future vintages.
It consists in limiting the number of eyes per plant, depending on the cultivation method chosen ("Gobelet", "cordon de Royat" or "Guyot" shapes). This long and time-consuming task is spread over a period of three or four consecutive months.

February - March
Repairs start to the vine supports: damaged stakes and wires are replaced. The soil is worked for the first time, enabling partial redistribution of the organic matter (fertiliser) in pruned twigs and branches

March
The sap rises and the brown sheaths on buds drop as the vine emerges from dormancy, at the same time as the first deep ploughing takes place to aerate the soil.


In the winery, the tasting of new wines enables the assembly and choice of wines which will be raised in oak casks. So that new wines will retain as much body as possible, they are cold-stabilised and racked (through a large-pore filter).