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Our ten Commandments

Get the perfect healthy and ripen grape, full of aromas.

1-Testimony of the vintage, authenticity of the terroir

Our choice of grape varietals, our terroir origins and our wine making methods are the same every year, nevertheless each year, our wines are very different the one from the other. It is the testimony of the vintage and we are really proud of it. Our wines are passionate and got authenticity from the terroir they are born from.

2-Respect of environment

La Chaume is nowadays a 45 ha farm, including 14 ha with vines. Little by little, all parcels surrounding the vineyard were cultivated as grassland according to organic agriculture rules. This land encircling the vineyard is a real natural protective barrier for vines. In ten years, more than 150 trees have been planted on the domain.

Vine can be easily affected by cryptogrammic diseases. Since the dawn of time, powdery mildew, downy mildew and botrytis have caused serious damages, sometimes irrevocable and have even caused complete destruction of a full harvest. Intervention is a need. La Chaume banishes for ever all use of chemical products. Vineyard is under organic management, certified ECOCERT.

3-Limit the number of bunches on each vine

Quality of harvest is closely linked to number of bunches on each vine. This truth also helped myth saying that only old vines can make good wine perpetuate. Of course an old vine, deeply rooted, got a better qualitative potential., and for a long time it was the only way to reduce naturally fruit burden. This rule is implemented thanks to very strict disbudding in La Chaume vineyard, from the end of April, about 50% of the fruit burden is pruned while blossoming. Aim is to get an average yield of 30hl/ha.
Thanks to this low burden, we use very few treatments against cryptogrammic diseases (well ventilated vines are less likely to develop diseases...)

4-Nourish soil to feed the plant

As in wine making, time is very important in soil management. Mineral fertilization (chemical fertilizers) allows plant to directly assimilate nutritive elements. Then soil is only a receiver, does no longer play his role of terroir, terroir which gives wine its character and makes it inimitable. On the contrary, with an organic amendment (animal manure, bird droppings), not directly assimilable by the plant, it will lead to a slow process of mineralization added to a strong microbiological development of soil.

Terroir lives at its own pace and will transmit this progressivity to plant which itself will take time to feed...

5-Priority to intervention by hand

Debudding, green harvesting, leafing and harvest are all done by hand. They ensure a meticulous and precise work until harvest of perfectly ripen grapes, healthy and selected, whatever weather conditions (in bad weather times for example, it is fanciful to believe that a harvesting machine could exercise the same care than a hand harvest)

From a healthy grape, to accompany fermentation process without any addition of exogenous products to produce natural wines.

6-Wine making processes by gravity

From reception, harvest is processed by natural gravity. Destalking and selection of grapes on sorting table are handle with the most meticulous care. Juice remontage (pumping over) by simple pumping or soft "rack and return" (delestage) will help to smoothly extract matter.

7-Banish synthetic chemistry

We take pride to banish all use of synthetic chemistry. The only exception to this rule, a very limited addition of sulfites to the harvest. When bottled, we check that no free sulfite is remaining (<10mg/l od SO2). Without any input , it is very risky because wine can become oxidative and aromatic deviance can also appear. Our commitment is very different because we aim to elaborate "straight wines", with very good ageing potential. During its fermentative phase, wine naturally produces limited quantities of free sulfites by its one, so we make a distinction between free sulfite in wine, directly digestible on blood, to combined sulfites on diverse molecular forms which do not have free sulfite harmful effects (headache...)
No other exogenous addition is used during our wine making and aging processes.

8-Rejection of corrective techniques for wine

Our "clean" work on the vineyard help us to confidently consider fermentation phase. We do not use any exogenous yeast strain. Natural yeast life which developed in our vineyard, guarantor of typical characters, is a element constitutive of our wine authenticity.
We are very careful to wine evolution during aging process, our philosophy remains the same with minimum intervention.

  • Malolactic fermentation , only for our red, naturally arises on spring following the harvest
  • We do not rack red wines, aged in barrels for 12 to 24 months according to cuvee. This low exposure to oxygen is part of our method to minimize any addition of sulfite
  • No clarification by collage for our red wines. For orféo and Bellae Domini aged in oak, no filtration at all.

 

9-Biorhythm of wine

Generally speaking, we are motivated by the idea that our wines are vivid and that we need to respect their biorhythm. So we avoid any traumatic intervention and let nature do its work (no artificial heat of the harvest, micro bubbling with oxygen, etc.) our experience shows that wine which has not been artificially modified will keep all its authenticity and characters, but will also benefit from a longer aging potential.

10-Wine of memory

Our passion is dominated by our need of truth, truth of time which helps wine all along its aging process, to express its mineral elements, to express its aromatic potential and to refine its matter.
Our handcrafted wines are the print of their terroir, their climate and of people who accompany them: They are wines of memory.


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