“uva imperat” is the motto of the estate Domaine du Bané, Saint-Sauveur’s wine creator Remy. Indeed it is the grape’s imposing what I try to decode until bottling. Ex nihilo in 2004, I created every year since 2008, a product that I like and want to share. I create with what nature and vintage offer me. The harvest is the appointment of an annually renewed adventure.
A wine tradition over 5000 years old, which began in Eastern Europe, Georgia and through conquest and trade exchanges with the East and South, spread through the Greeks, Egyptians, Arabs and old Romans with Caton and Columelle till us. Transmission of a knowledge that I am trying to maintain, adapt to the climate, the soil, the grapes, the “terroir” in one word. Above all environmentally friendly !
MY CONVICTIONS AND MY PHILOSOPHY
I create every year wines that reflect a vintage. They will all be different and typical of the year of production. My practices in terms of wine growing and wine making are poles apart from industrial or semi-industrial wines.
The soil of the estate is alluvial from the quaternary, having a lot of stones, sandy-gravelly-silty reddish. The quaternary covers the last two million years. During this period there was the last ice age 20 000 years ago, when the sea level were 100m lower than nowadays, deposing rough sands also called alluvial deposit. But there was also far more later, a climatic warm up, which brought up the sea levels and with it the deposit of fine sands also called organic sand.
Viticulture is as close to soil and climate as possible. The whole domain, which is driven in polycultural ways, as well as all its products are labelled High Environmental Value (HVE), label which qualifies for the preservation of the biodiversity, phytosanitary strategy, fertilization and water resource management, on the entire domain. The originality of the HVE label is to carry a social promise as well and not only on one single product, but also on the sustainability of the soil, the quality of the environment and all the products issued from it, products deserving respect and respecting their consumer’s convictions.
Any synthetic chemical input is prohibited. The treatments are those permitted and even necessary in organic and biodynamic agriculture i.e cupric treatment and also sulphiting. If necessary, herbs infusions are sprayed... No irrigation or water waste and as less organic fertilizer as possible. CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic ) have always been banned from the Domaine. If possible what is taken out is brought back in the soil (must from pressing, vine shoots etc…). Earthing/de-earthing is mechanical, by tractor and mostly by horse. The turf is natural and maintained by hand like all vineyard operations (pruning, disbudding, polling etc...), up to and including the harvest, which is done according to the lunar calendar (as well as the pruning) in small baskets 30kg grapes max. each one. Volume and yield are deliberately limited, approx. 15-20hl / ha depending on the vintage and of course on the weather!
The wine making and aging are close to the characteristics of the vintage hoping there are no microbiological deviance which would condemn the wine to the waste! Thus sulphiting is zero or minimized, skin maceration is adapted to the vintage, white will age longer or less in tanks, red more or less in French oak, filtered or not during the bottling ... Bottling, labeling and packaging are also made at the estate.
From vineyard to the wine, standards and norms that protect your health are respected, applied, controlled and often surpassed. But the labels and other rules that standardize tastes and wine expressions are systematically refuted. I give special care to use quality and natural products (bottles, natural corks ...) and to work with local craftsmen whenever possible.
