In 2001 I graduated from The School of Vineyards in Beaune, in the Bourgogne region, with a professional diploma in wine making. This year I started to grow my own vines.

Today, I work an area of three hectares. All the vineyards are in the St Lothain community in the heart of the Jurassien wine country.

I am a vigneron who respects the environment and so I don’t use chemical or synthetic treatments and only use sulphur and plant extracts from such as nettles, horsetails, weed and comfrey to protect my vines.

I envisage reconverting to biological agriculture in 2007.  By limiting the growth of the vine (not using chemical fertilizers), planting and working the soil, and stripping the leaves off the vines, this helps the vines natural defences against aggresive weather.

A vine which produces a small yield of 35 hl/ha doesn’t have the same needs and protection as a vine producing 90 hl/ha.  With controlled yields we produce less fragile vines, with healthy mature fruit and a well balanced wine.

You should not break nature’s balance. The plant, the wildlife, the soil and the vigneron, should live together in harmony in order to extract the refinements of the land.

Didier Grappe        

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