As soon as we took over the estate in
April 2000, the first priority was to recover the vineyards.
They had not been harvested or pruned for a number of
years, and as well as dealing with the general neglect,
they had serious drainage problems. This last issue
was only underlined by the storms that hit the area
over Christmas 1999. Re-establishing adequate drainage
for the vineyards was probably the single most important
issue affecting grape quality.
click image to repeat transformation
Within the vineyards we were able to recover, we still
needed to replace some 20.000 missing vines. The rootstock
used in this case was 3309, one vigorous enough to compete
with the existing plants. In the old vineyards, as well
as careful pruning, we needed to replace most of the
trellis posts and wires. Five hectares of old vineyards
were beyond the point at which they could be realistically
saved, and were replaced with new plantations in a better
parcel. Over the following three years a further 8 hectares
would be replanted, representing approximately half
the estate.
For each plot we carefully selected the most appropriate
rootstocks (3309 for replacing missing vines in the
old vineyards, 101.14 and Riparia Gloire de Montpellier
for new plantations) and Merlot clones (181-343 &
347).
