The Vineyards at Bernard Defaix
The 2009 year has brought a great change to Bernard Defaix : they have officialized their vineyard’s conversion into organic farming as they went through the official certification under the control of Ecocert. For many years yet, they have moved towards a sustainable and more ecological farming. Organic farming is the logical result of all this work.The maintenance of the soils is made ploughing exclusively. We always make a winter ploughing, more or less deep according to the situations. We also try to earth some vines up as our parents and grand-parents used to do. It consists in digging a furrow in the middle of the row so as to bring back some earth at the base of the vine plant and make a little mound. The point of this work is to aerate the soil deeply ant to bury the weeds. However, both earthing-up and de-earthing are delicate to do as they need good weather conditions. Moreover, in the sloping plots, it can increase the erosion. Then, during the season, the ploughing is being done at different times, according to the weeds sprouting.
For the vineyard’s protection, only the spraying products like sulphur and cupper are authorized. Therefore we have to use them as properly as possible in order to reach the best efficiency without spraying too much nor too often. This is a very concrete and an interesting approach of vine-growing, yet it is also very constraining and stressful to follow up.
Considering this new context, we completely rethink our way to work the vine, helping the plant to get back to its central role and helping it to fight against parasites. Some signs of research on products that boost the natural defence system are coming up. However, at present, they don’t seem to be as efficient as expected. We are testing some products, but we don’t want to play either the game of the magical cures.
In this context, we are getting closer to the working situation of our grand-parents and then of our parents when they started, yet with two important advantages. On the one hand, we use a much higher-performance material as well for working the soils as for spraying. On the other hand, we now have forecast tools for the weather and for the pressure of diseases, that were not available then.
Winemaking at Bernard Defaix
To make good wine, you need good grapes.The first step to successful winemaking begins in the vineyard itself. The training of the vines on organic farming with a very rigorous follow-up enables the grapes to reach their peak level of maturity and expression. We harvest mechanically for better working flexibility. We can, for example, stop harvesting when it rains. On our grape variety, Chardonnay, we obtain very good results with the harvesting machine and the quality of our wines is excellent.
The grapes for Bernard Defaix Chablis are taken rapidly to the cellar where there are immediately pressed. We began in 2004 with a new installation for receiving the harvest and pressing which respects the raw material even more.
In the new harvesting bins, there is a chamber at the bottom to collect the juice and separate it from the harvest in order to avoid oxidation. Then, the harvesting bins are emptied on a conveyor belt which “feeds” one of the presses. With this system, we can refine the sorting, and the grapes are absolutely not triturated. The soft pressing allows us to sort the best juices. Finally, on the new press, the bottom collecting the juices has reduced dimensions so that the surface contact between air and juice is as small as possible.
The first benefit we have observed with this new installation is the very low rate of deposit in the juices, which enables us to work even more on the fineness of the wines. The alcoholic fermentation, followed by the malolactic fermentation, take place in stainless steel tanks or in oak barrels depending on the type of wine being produced. The wine is kept on its fine lees for 8 to 12 months, depending on the cru or vintage. These lees are regularly moved round to enrich the wine. In the barrels, we use a "batonnage" technique, and in the tanks the lees are pumped over in the absence of air. Racking begins in April with Petit Chablis and ends during the summer for the Premiers Crus. We fine the wines to ensure soft clarification. They then undergo light filtration before bottling. We carry out all these operations ourselves.
In the days before concrete and stainless steel, wood was the only recipient in which one was able to store and transport wine in bulk. Different varieties of wood were utilised. Today, the only wood used for wine barrels is oak. Indeed, from a mere container, wood was soon discovered to play an actual role in improving wine ; vine-growers thus selected the wood which had the most interesting sensorial qualities, namely oak. A part of our wines ferment and are aged in oak barrels. The wood is porous, allowing micro-oxygenation of the wine. Furthermore, the lees are regularly moved round using "batonnage". These 2 processes enable the wine to acquire fuller body and structure.
However, in order to preserve the typicity of the Bernard Defaix appellations, it is essential to use wood with great care. Indeed, if the proportion of barrels (and new barrels) is too great, the oak confers its own aromas, masking those of the wine. We are careful not to go to this extreme. This is why the “cuvées”aged in barrels are always blended with the same “cuvées” aged in tanks. Therefore, in our wines that are fermented and aged in barrels, the aromatic hints of wood almost go unnoticed.
