Our philosophy at the vineyard

The organic vineyard has never seen chemical fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides. The soils have an organic and microbiologique life that bring all that the plant needs to produce perfectly ripe and healthy grapes necessary to elaborate great Terroir wines.

The Organic agriculture is practiced since 2005 vintage. She is the ecological answer to the conventional agriculture. The treatments are realised with natural products, and the chemical products are unwanted and forbidden.
We use small quantities of cupric (6 kg/ha/year allowed) and sulphur to fight against vines diseases (mildew, odium). But also infusions of plants (nettles, wicker, horsetail) that increase the natural defences of the vine when they are associated to the treatments. These plants allowed decreasing also the quantities of cupric. Other products like the bacteria Bacillus Turengiencis and the insects that we can find naturally in the vineyard, allow fighting against unwanted insects. That’s why, we don’t need to use insecticides.
Trough to the ploughing (tractor and horse), we control grass development, and we keep the soil life. A soil that lives is a soil with a good aeration and many mushrooms, bacterias and an important soil life. This allows the production of organic material that identifies each Terroir. We also bring organic material that we produce our self. In a good practice, Organic agriculture is more ecological than conventional agriculture. We stay also closer to our earths by doing manual works and accurate controls.

After nearly ten years of organic farming, Biodynamic method is obvious to the field of Gandines. We experience and respect the biodynamic method since the 2011 vintage. Our ancestors have always worked with the moon either in the vineyard or garden. Biodynamic farming has much in common with organic farming. Copper is used in limited doses to 3kg/ha/year is less than half organic.
Compliance with the rhythms of the day, the year and the lunar cycle are paramount. The moon has a direct influence on the sap and operation of plants. In autumn and revival of vegetation in spring, spraying horn dung also called « 500 » will set the seed soil bacteria and fungi. The « 500 » is obtained by filling cow horns with cow dung. These horns are then buried during all winter long. During the winter microbial activity around the pile
is intense and during excavation, cow dung contained in the horns turned into very rich in humus fungi and bacteria.
Since we work in organic, the vines are beautiful and the wines are much more complex. Biodynamic method strengthens the balance between sugar and acidity in the grapes, with much deep in the wines which are also more right and balanced.