Friday, August 11, 2017

Haute Sécurité


This year we have put up over 1 mile of fencing around our more sensitive vines to try and keep our old ‘friend’ the wild boar out of our precious vineyards.  It’s never quite as easy as saying ‘I’m just going to put up a fence’ as firstly we had to get the digger out to clear away the undergrowth and then 'we' knocked in over 400 metal posts in perhaps one of the stoniest soils in France. 
 
 
The priority was to protect the vineyards on the edge of the garrigue (prime wild boar territory) such as La Caune or Falandrin with its natural spring that becomes a regular watering hole in the summer.
 
All the vineyards we protected were either syrah which ripen early, or the deliciously aromatic muscat with the exception of St Roch which is planted with 100 year old carignan and grenache and normally of less interest to the greedy wild pigs.  But as it is one the last vineyards to be harvested in the village, when everything else has been picked our little vineyard at St Roch becomes surprisingly tasty.


This year the wild boar seem to be hungrier than ever and have already started nibbling at unripe grapes in our unprotected vineyards.  They were so desperate to get into the Falandrin vineyard that they ram raided the fence.