A delayed harvest:

A visit to Catherine Bernard and Nicolas Allain, August 2022

Harvest cannot begin yet. Thirst-driven wild boars roved through Catherine Bernard’s vines several nights before; ravaging fruit, vines, and the land alike in their passage through her oldest plot, La Carbonelle. In this Mediterranean heatwave, wild boars quench their thirst on the berries and disinter the roots of vines for nutrition; breaking and ripping young branches, tender roots and leaves. Boar damage–a first for Catherine and her son Nicolas Allain–combined with a punishing heatwave, and an unexpected drought translate to unexpected losses and a need to adapt and delay their 2022 harvest.

In multiple conversations, often off-handedly, Catherine mentions her outsider status in this part of the Herault. Interlopers (Catherine is from Brittany, and was previously a journalist for the Libération newspaper) are sometimes barely tolerated, and vigneronnes, especially those who farm with ‘unconventional’ practices are expected to be silent, tread lightly, and to move in their lanes without affecting the Languedoc’s viticultural status quo. Catherine and Nicolas’ methods stand in stark contrast to neighbouring wine estates that have succumbed to the siren’s call of irrigating with water diverted and drawn from the Rhône. Some larger more conventional estates across the commune of Saint Drézéry employ such intense water use that trenches are dug around vines to collect the overflow… and these shallow ditches are abundant with reeds normally found by marshes… a most bizarre, and unnatural occurrence. Here in this naturally arid landscape, the nature of our changing climate presents an unflinching reality for agriculturalists and viticulturists farming in the French Mediterranean. 

This ecologically-minded ethos extends to the Catherine’s chai where she and Nicolas vinify and age the wines they make. A bioclimatic structure completed in 2015, the chai itself sits on a mount of raised earth, with walls constructed from shipping pallets. This sympathetic use of repurposed material allows the chai to maintain a constant temperature in the heat of the Herault, as the gaps allow passing winds to cool the vat room. Water too is repurposed – the roofing structure funnels rainfall into three vast concrete tanks which in the heat function as cooling chambers too. The cellar lies beneath, hollowed out of the earthen mound. Its location below ground means that the ambient temperature is simultaneously insulated by the compacted earth and soil, with addition thermal regulation from the rainwater tanks.

Since 2018 Catherine and Nicolas have worked with Laurent Mulero, a young winegrower with family vines dating to the 1970s. Nicolas, his friend Julien and Catherine are currently in the process of recovering and converting to biodynamics a plot of mature Aramon–a traditional but lately unpopular Languedoc varietal–that was historically owned by Laurent’s family. Catherine elaborated that the process of conversion takes some years and in the early days, vines can appear to thrive while still weaning off conventional agricultural practices. The mettle and resolve of these vines against the environment will only be truly tested when conversion nears completion and the vines are no longer reliant on conventional treatments. At this early stage, the Aramon plot appears to be thriving, with large bunches of grapes and glossy verdant leaves. We picked samples of the grapes to test their ripeness and alcohol levels back at the chai, and to experiment with potential blends with the juice of Alicante Bouschet that was picked earlier in the morning.

On our return to the chai after inspecting various plots, a question was posed by Marta (a Swiss agroforestry graduate who was here to assist with Catherine’s harvest, and whose family farmed vines near Lugano, Switzerland) about planting drought and heat-resistant hybrids to combat the changing climate. Catherine’s counter-proposal: to not introduce hybrids so readily as a solution; instead she intends to study and understand how old ungrafted vines with deep roots in hotter and drier parts of the Mediterranean thrive. Her intent is to develop a long-term response that will draw on deeper knowledge of viticulture in similar environments, and to adapt that tacit understanding for the future of her viticultural and agricultural projects in the Herault.

To that end, she has formulated a plan, the first pages of a new chapter of small-scale natural viticulture in the region. First, to grow indigenous Languedoc varietals from seed – to cultivate and condition ungrafted vines and their roots to the mercurial climatic conditions. Second, to intersperse vines with indigenous fruit trees and to cover the plots with Mediterranean herbal leys. Thirdly, with Roman, a young Savoie-trained goat farmer and cheesemaker, to initiate an animal husbandry project that will diversify the agricultural landscape of her own domain and on future plots that she and Nicolas will acquire. ‘In the future, we will grow and produce other things. And yes, we will make less wine, but that is alright,’ remarked Catherine while making a left turn onto the dirt track leading to her chai.

D.L., August 2022