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Nick Breeze 00:23
Philippe, it's good to speak to you. Can you start by giving me a brief overview of the philosophy of this domain and where we are?
Philippe Dry 00:33
We are we are located in a small village called Rochecolombe, which is to say if you know Montelimar, it's fifty kilometres west from Montelimar. So we're in the middle of our Ardeche territory, south of Ardeche on the kind of soil we like here which is what we call gravette. It is this kind of calcareous soil which is with clay under the ground, which is the best soil we find here, that you can also find burgundy. This estate covers 25 hectares that yet surrounding this house, that you see now.
Nick Breeze 01:18
You just mentioned the geology here. How does that interact with the climate? What sort of climate are we talking about?
01:24
So now we are in the South of Ardeche, so the vineyards are at an altitude between 200 to 500 metres, that we are already in South of France. So the day are getting warmer and warmer, unfortunately, but we keep the freshness in the night. So we have this chance of having a good difference in terms of temperature between night and day. And we work a lot on that to keep the freshness of our wines.
Nick Breeze 01:54
Okay, and you've been here for eight years now, what are the changes that you've been seeing through and how are they going?
02:04
When I arrived here, the vineyards were already very well conducted, we have the grapes with the best reputation that you can find in France and in the world like Chardonnay Sauvignon, Viognier for the white and Granache Syrah, but also Merlot, Cabernet, Pinot Noir for the red. So we work step by step to improve the quality of our wines, throughout all the processes, of course, improving the quality of the vineyards, working more on organic process, but also the vinification, the ageing. and even the bottling is also important to all the process that helps our Vignorone d'Ardeche winery to become to improve its' reputation.
Nick Breeze 02:48
When I look around, I'm seeing we've just pointed out some fantastic birds of prey up in the sky, there's constant activity. Are you making any conscious of with biodiversity?
03:03
Biodiversity is key. We have the chance to be here nowadays, where naturally the biodiversity is great. But we have an impact on the environment. We cover 6000 acres with a Vignerons Ardéchois states 25 hectares, Domaine Terra Noé. So we want to show the interest of organic process to preserve and even develop the biodiversity. So here on this state, we work with an association because legal protection is Wezel. And we check every year we control the number of birds bats butterfly, and we see how the organic process I mean, the grass we pulled we now have on the floor, how does it help to have insect to have reverse and to recreate the chain? That is, of course, key for the future of the vineyards.
Nick Breeze
I know, a lot of people often confuse sort of bio biodiversity with organics. But really, you're doing organics as well. Can you just talk a little bit about that and how it's working?
Yeah, because in fact, if you take the organic process, they do not mention anything about biodiversity. And of course, both are important and as long as you do work on the floor, and you keep the grass, you help of course developing these biodiversity. We think it's important to also to control these parameters and to see how it improves. We observe here 12 Different bats a special space a space of bats. So it's difficult from for us to know what difference between one bat or another. So, thanks to this association, we now really can can say and can control the result of working on organic process.
Nick Breeze
Let's come back to the domain here and the wines. Across the Ardeche there is a surprising diversity in everything that is going on. And history in terms of the expertise that is fed in. Can you talk a little bit about how this has fed into what you're doing now?
Philippe Dry
The house is from the 19th century, and we had the chance when we bought this estate that the, the wine growers has worked over three generations to restore these 25 hectares. So we just wanted go forward to improve the quality of wines and the way of working. Here people were working in a, let's say, classic way or using pesticides and so forth, and we wanted to get rid of it. So now we work fully organic for three years now. The new vintage will be fully organic. And we also change all the vinification processes. We invest more than 3 million in a new winery. That is to say, we work like Burgundy house could work, only by gravity, we pick up the grapes and we don't want to damage any grapes and there was no pumping, no hurting for that. I think in the future, we have the ability here to prove that we can both protect the environment and make make extremely good wines.
