Alain & Isabelle Hasard (Burgundy)(2)
By 2009-3-3 11:38:57
Showing his Côte-Chalonnaise plots below AluzeA few meters below the vilage of Aluze, we walk along his Côte-Chalonnaise vineyards. Named "les Roches Pendantes" (Hanging Rocks, because there's an surfacing rock-table above the vineyard at the limit of the village), they lie on a gentle slope (exposed on south) 
facing the vista. When it's warm in summer, they even have a local type of cicadas here. These particular vineyards are rented, not owned. Right now, they've been cutting the canes on the vines and they will burn the bundles later. He doesn't use any wheeled burner and remarks that the workers using these wheeled-stoves often use thick petrol-oil to start the fire, which is polluting the soil. The vineyard on the right is about 20 years old and the Clos des Roches Pendantes on the left [pic on left] was planted in 1959 (50 years). He uses very light machinery to plow his vineyards, a small tunnel/hovering plower and an ultralight caterpillar-tractor (80 kg and 70 cm width !) to plow without compressing the earth beneath the vines (it was alas away for repair and I have no pic to show). They plant at 12500 vines per hectare and the Clos for example, where many vines miss here and there, will be replanted this year with massal-selection vines at this very high density.He says that the good result of having a high density like 12 500 vines/hectare or higher (he knows a vigneron -I'll not tell who because the INAO doesn't authorize such high density- who planted at 18 000 vines/hectare) is not higher yields but the fact that they have the same yields evenly distributed on a larger quantity of vines. The pruning has to be a bit shorter in these conditions and the high density translates in smaller clusters and smaller grapes. He says that as the color resides in the skin of the grape, the smaller the grapes, the better the skin/juice ratio, and you get richer, more intense substances in the wine.
Les Roches Pendantes (Côte Chalonnaise) - Aluze in the backgroundThey're only the two of them to work in the vineyard, himself and his wife Isabelle (they have 5 children to take care of too !). Their total vineyard surface including the Mercurey and the Rully is 6 hectares (they sold their last Côtes-du-Couchois plot), which is at the same time small and big if you consider they do all the hard work themselves. They also had a Hautes-Côtes-de-Beaune plot they didn't communicate much about.
Aluze sits on a tumultuous geological crossroads and faults with strikingly different subsoils. Trias clays similar to the Couchois on one side, Hercynian rock table on another, and on the eastern side of Aluze, Oxfordian marls from the mid-Jurassic era, which are thick with limestone. All these different soils yield completely different wines.
Walking back to the village and the winery, he says that Aluze is home to 7 vignerons living off their winery but only two of them bottle their wines, the other sell in bulk either to the Negoce or to the nearby Buxy Coop (which is btw a rather good coop). He says that while on the whole they met a relatively good welcome in the Côte Chalonnaise (where another passionnate vintner was viewed as a plus for the Appellation), it was much more difficult in the Couchois where they were resented as being too different by the other vignerons. He says that people over there somehow felt through this difference of work & philosophy that their own high-yield, intensive farming and the related vinification-practices were doomed in a near future. The fact that this confused and painful awakaning was caused by an outsider was an additionnal ordeal for them.
From wineterroirs.com
