The Vineyard

The domain spreads over 6 ha.

4,50 ha are located on Rully 1er cru: Rully 1er cru Mont-Palais, Rully 1er cru Les Cloux and Rully 1er cru Rabourcé for the whites ; Rully 1er cru Préaux and Rully 1er cru Clos du Chapitre for the reds. The Clos du Chapitre is located on the appellation Chapitre and entirely closed with a stone wall.

And we also work on 1.50 ha of AC Rully.

The domain has moved to organic farming  in 2009. Hélène Jaeger-Defaix, ingeneer in agronomy and oenologist, works with her husband Didier Defaix, winemaker in Chablis (Domaine Bernard Defaix).

The maintenance of the soils is made by ploughing exclusively. We always make a winter ploughing, more or less deep according to the situations. We also try to earth some vines up as our parents and grand-parents used to do. It consists in digging a furrow in the middle of the row so as to bring back some earth at the base of the vine plant and make a little mound. The point of this work is to aerate the soil deeply and to bury the weeds. However, both earthing-up and de-earthing are delicate to do as they need good weather conditions. Moreover, in the sloping plots, it can increase the erosion.

Then, during the season, the ploughing is being done at different times, according to the weeds sprouting.

For the vineyard’s protection, only the spraying products like sulphur and cupper are authorized. Therefore we have to use them as properly as possible in order to reach the best efficiency without spraying too much nor too often. This is a very concrete and an interesting approach of vine-growing, yet it is also very constraining and stressful to follow up

Considering this new context, we completely rethink our way to work the vine, helping the plant to get back to its central role and helping it to fight against parasites.