Our dream terroir
Cultivating love
It is with love that we value
our terroir a little way from the village of Aniane, in the Hérault region of France, simply by using the right insight.
A great wine is born from a great grape, a great grape is born from a great terroir.
And however prestigious it may be, one should know how to take care of it with love. Let’s not forget, we are in the heart of Aniane!
We prioritize taste,
taste and more taste in all stages of
the winemaking process:
We prioritize taste, taste and more taste in all stages of the winemaking process:
The taste determines the date of harvest,
because we taste the grapes every day, we only harvest when the grapes attain the right phenolic ripeness. Beyond the traditional and technical measures, we only harvest when the seeds, flesh and skin of the grapes have the exact taste we dreamed of.
…Then the prefect vinification time
we taste the grape must every day, sometimes even twice a day to achieve the ideal extraction of aromas and tannins…
… and the perfect blend,
we taste again and again to marry our different grape varieties until we manage to express our evidence, our essential, and reach the perfect balance.
Good taste and right insight.
Our new vineyard plots are planted with 5 different grape varieties.
In red, an assortment of syrah, mourvèdre, grenache, carignan, cinsault, nielluccio.
For whites, one out of two vines will be Sauvignon, the other Chardonnay. And we will add some vermentino.
This will allow to attenuate the effect of the grape variety on the soils, and put forth the terroir. In 10 years, the entire vineyard will be in complantation. Mycorrhization allows the synchronicity of the ripening and everything to be harvested in one pass.
17 different species of fruit hedges alternate with our rows of vines to mimic the exact natural ecosystem of the forest…
Thus, it joins the vineyard. It provides water, shade and the whole agroecological system.
To reduce the number of machine passages, we spread straw from the estate and cardboard boxes recovered from the bottling process. This practice allows us to obtain more humidity in soils. This year, the irrigation of mulched plots wasn’t needed. The vine is less stressed by water stress and the wines have a better sugar/acid balance. In a word, a balanced and living soil takes care of the vine, allowing the blossoming of ripe and mature grapes at the right phenolic level.
Furthermore, we almost no longer have to spray our vines, with such a process. Mother Nature is well made, and when she is allowed to thrive, it becomes magical and almost revolutionary. This is what we call vitiforestry. Each plot will be surrounded by trees of all sizes within a few years. The goal is to see only a few vines in the middle of the woods.
We grow vegetables in permaculture between rows of vines to promote biodiversity on certain plots. Finally, the bees for which fellow flowers have been planted in the vineyards pollinate the fruit hedges. Fruits are transformed into gourmet desserts in the group’s restaurants.
The soil work is not mechanized…
We work our land with the utmost respect for nature.
Removing chemical product from soil work, our soil is alive.
Composed of multiple bacteria and fungi, the ideal ecosystem of the vine is 1/3 fungi and 2/3 bacteria.
Year after year, we see life returning to the estate. There are far fewer mosquitoes, as well as bats, loads of partridges, hares, wild boars (greedy)…
… All ancestral practices that paradoxically make us avant-garde.
Boris and Leticia want to create a sustainable system by putting in place all the good practices for the next generations.
They work as a lab of the future, never short of ideas, never fearing to do anything like the others. Soon, Boris and Leticia wish to introduce a cow that will naturally pre-prune the vines and sheep that will regulate the grass cover. This will allow to design a pond that will further increase biodiversity, temper the environment and build a new cellar with a lower part 5 meters below ground, a green roof and a natural temperature regulation thanks to Canadian wells.
Boris and Leticia’s dream?
That in a few years, a satellite photo shows La Grande Sieste as a small building with a few vines in the middle of the forest. The soul of La Grande Sieste: do the best for nature and to make good wines that we share.
