Read the latest posts from the blogs of each of our wine brands.
2016’s growing season was exceptionally favorable to the vine. Nature has given us a vintage that won’t soon be forgotten. After a mild and slightly rainy winter, a cool wet spring triggered a somewhat delayed bud break (marking the end of winter dormancy, bud break is the moment when the new leaves push through their […]
The trade press is just beginning to talk about a topic that greatly concerns many winemakers here in France – the sharp increase in vine mortality due to what is euphemistically called “wood diseases.” Every year, an average plot in France can lose between 1.5% and 3.5% of its population (in a decade that means […]
Here in Costières de Nîmes, the Volques are our wine-making ancestors. No one can deny the contributions made by the Romans in our beautiful area, but when they arrived here in 121 BC, they found an epicurean civilization that had already been cultivating vines for 4 centuries — the Volques Arécomiques. This Celtic confederation founded […]
A wine owes its character to the potential of its soil and how it’s interpreted by the winemaker. I often compare winemaking to music — the results depends both on the musical score and the musician. Reducing the equation to just these two parameters is a simplification that I can easily overlook, but it ignores […]
The vineyard I’m looking at from my window this morning is shaggy with chaotic vines, bristling with wild weeds and mottled by spots of mildew from the recent rains. Some years back I would have thought “what messy work” and today I find it just beautiful. I learned to take care of vineyards before understanding […]
Winemakers have used sulfur since the Middle-Ages. Ever since the invention of the sulfur wick in the seventeenth century, which was essential for the preservation of ageing or traveling wines, sulfur has been closely associated with winemaking. As a matter of fact, there is no way to banish entirely sulfur from wine, it’s a natural byproduct […]
2016’s growing season was exceptionally favorable to the vine. Nature has given us a vintage that won’t soon be forgotten. After a mild and slightly rainy winter, a cool wet spring triggered a somewhat delayed bud break (marking the end of winter dormancy, bud break is the moment when the new leaves push through their […]
The terroir of the Costières de Nîmes is sedimentary, a “layer cake”. Huge variability of the contents of this “millefeuille” exists, not only from one zone to another, not only between vineyards, but sometimes even from one vine to another. To simplify the overall pattern, today we see two broad geological types in our vineyards, each one with significant nuances.
One of our family’s favorite spots is a knoll that to the north is sheltered by a small Garrigue forest and to the south is blessed by an unsurpassed view of our vineyards descending toward the marshes of Camargue (and in the evening the lighthouses that dot our part of the Mediterranean). On the center […]
Driven by a desire to do better, each year Eudes and I think about aspects of our craft that we can improve. This year we met Roman Mirc, a young consultant specializing in vine training and pruning. Competent, passionate and full of a farmer’s common sense, he quickly opened our eyes on the improvements we […]
Here in Costières de Nîmes, we had a late bud break but by bloom the vintage had caught up with a normal year. No significant shattering to report and crop size is looking good. The summer was hot and dry and veraison started late mid-July. Late August produced two storms with, in some cases, significant […]
Winemaking goes against the prevailing winds of our modern life. While today we are driven to do everything more quickly, to expect that every need can be met immediately, to believe we can understand anything straightaway with increasing amounts of information at our fingertips, to craft a great wine means knowing how to wait… Nature […]
To enter our website, you must be of legal drinking age in your country.