Winegrowing

Everything starts with the vine. For a long while, we failed to remember that serious preparation is needed to produce an excellent grape that will characterize its terroir in the best conditions. Here are Alain Brumont’s 11 commandments:

Strong plantation density: 7500 vines/hectare. It is well known that the closer the vines are to each other, the more likely we will be prone to a Bonsai effect resulting in smaller bunches.

Row orientated at 1500 Hours allowing the sunrays to reach both sides of the rows morning and afternoons. A bunch of grapes that is 100% in contact with the sun will develop a better quality. They should transpire 100 to 300 times more than a bunch protected by its leaves. A 1500 hours, the sun is at its peak and vertical to the leaf this lets the grapes cool for 1 hour, which keeps them from burning.

Bud Selection: The most hardy and weakest are excluded during bud bursting. Without selection, there could be an interval in maturity between hardier and weaker vine-shoots from one grape to the other, ranging from one hour to several days.
Selecting 5 to 6 bunches per vine and one bunch per vine-shoot (one vine-shoot can produce up to 2 to 2 1/2 bunches).

Thinning out the leaves systematically 3 times:
- June: thinning out East side
- July: thinning out West side
- August: remove 10 cm above the grapes on both sides.

The two first thinning outs let the grapes get used to the hardship of the sun, the last thinning-out in August slightly reduces the alcohol level by reducing the photosynthesis and the sugar production.

Calibration of the grapes in 3 checks.
During the last check, all the bunches must be shaped to obtain the same weight.

The bunches are checked one by one three weeks prior to harvest to make sure that none of the grapes are damaged or late (maturity).
In total, 9 to 10 supplementary checks are made throughout the whole vineyard.

Control: Each row is marked by the person in charge (28 to 30 persons employed in the vines from April to September). Points are given to each row. Each terroir has a pre-determined grape yield.

No grape yield per hectare. This notion applied by the INAO and various control organisations is, according to Alain Brumont totally outdated and is of no subsequence. Indeed, with a 50 hl/ha yield, we may find bunches of 1 kg or 25 bunches depending on density. At Brumont, we prefer talking in grams per bunch (120 to 300 g) and in kilos per vine per terroir.

Hand harvested in crates of one layer for the high quality vintages.