Green pruning

A little de-leafing and green-pruning for the Pinot noir to ensure the grapes at harvest time will have a consistent sugar level. Exposing the grapes and snipping off any tiny ones like this directs the nutrients to ripen the grapes. Not essential, or widely practiced but we believe makes a big difference to the taste. The Pinot noir goes into our Brut and Cuveé sparklings and makes up 100% of our Pinot noir rosé (and these have been awarded Best Sparkling wine and Best Rosé in recent years in our regional competition).

Philippe from the south of France has done the lions-share of looking after the vines this season. In this picture, which happened to be taken by a photographer on the day we came across Philippe a couple of years ago, he was captured in deep concentration sampling the Pinot noir rosé and then more recently is pictured green-pruning those very vines. The grapes are looking very promising this year and the vines in really good health – santé Philippe!