In the last few weird weeks we have seen how flora and fauna can rapidly renew when given the chance. Friday 22nd May 2020 is International Biodiversity Day and we have teamed up with some like minded bars and restaurants to celebrate our winemakers and the work they do in their vineyards to promote life other than that of the vine.

Grape growing regions are, more often than not, areas of extreme monoculture. Travelling through Beaujolais, Burgundy or Piemonte one has the impression of being in a sea of vines and intensive agriculture. Attentive vineyard work and particular attention to polyculture is a huge part of what makes wines from our winemakers so special and as part of The Great Wilding we have chosen a couple of them that we feel are great examples of this.

If you want to read more about biodiversity, wine production and consumption visit thewilding.org

Michael Georget - Domaine le Temps Retrouve

Michael’s work in the vineyard is firmly rooted in Biodynamic practice. He spent many years working with winemakers in his native Loire Valley and Alsace to learn how to apply the thinking of Rudolf Steiner to the practice of growing grapes before settling at the foot of the Pyrenees.

Here, Michael cultivates his vines as part of a polyculture of grasses, legumes, cereals and flowers and very importantly alongside his beehives. Bees, he says, are the companion of the vine. His vineyards are teeming with life.

Pierre and Anne-Marie Lavaysse - Le Petit Gimios

Anne-Marie moved to the hamlet of Gimios up in the Haute Minervois with her kids in 1993. She began work recuperating a farm that had long been abandoned starting with vegetables and some dairy cows and following Biodynamic principles. The farm’s vines had seen little love for many years and here, on the hot limestone plateau of Gimios, vines need a lot of love. Walking the vineyards of Le Petit Gimios you have the impression that the vines are piercing through the very rock, there is little topsoil to speak of but your eyes dwell and you pick out the herbs, trees and crops that seem to be thriving alongside them. Apricots, almonds, and figs surrounded by carpets of wild rosemary and thyme. Up here we are far away from the desertified vineyards of the majority of the Languedoc Roussillon.

That the vines and co-planted crops thrive is due in no small amount to Anne-Marie’s son, Pierre, who took over the vineyard work in the early 2000s. Also her cows who spend the winter months in the vineyards eating what they want and giving back some much needed compost.

If you want to read more about biodiversity, wine production and consumption visit thewilding.org