Monday, August 13, 2012

Carbon


The carbon footprint is not the only important assessment, but also: economic, social, ecological...

I visited my vineyards and cellars before most of my employees left for their holidays, knowing that there's always work to be done in the vineyard as well as in the cellar. The veraison started and confirmed that the harvest will start in late September, early October. It will not be an early year. The vineyards look beautiful but the yields will be quite low. We'll see what happens in Saint Emilion. The vineyards are being so well tended that it looks like a big garden, which is great. This contradicts some of the articles stating that the vines are not being tended. They are probably written by someone who doesn’t go to the same places as me or who has not often worked in vineyards. It would be interesting that a scientific and financial study be done on the hours worked in our vineyards in Bordeaux, in noble appellations and more, and compare it to other places in France supposed to work better or even in other countries (California, Italy ...).

The commitment in personnel, the number of men and women working per hectare should be significantly positive for companies in Bordeaux. In my company, we have a full time employee for 2 hectares, compared with the usual 1 full time employee for 4 hectares, for our fine wines and in addition, we have seasonal workers (pruning, de-leafing, green harvest and regular harvest).

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