Clos Roche Blanche: Vineyards
This part of my profile of Clos Roche Blanche looks at the vineyards as they were under the direction of Didier Barrouillet and Catherine Roussel, in particular Didier’s approach to viticulture. As their era drew to a close, they had about half of their 18 hectares planted to red varieties, a mix of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Pineau d’Aunis and Côt. The other half was planted to white, namely Sauvignon Blanc although there was also some Chardonnay. The vines were on the whole mature, in particular the Côt, with some vines having more than one hundred years under their belts.
The soils were nutritionally poor sandy-silty clay and flint and the surface, with deeper Turonian limestone, and the rows between the vines were covered over in the centre with grasses, wildflowers and weeds to provide competition for surface water and to encourage a diverse insect population. Didier Barrouillet would plough either side of the vine, but only in a very superficial manner. He always shied away from turning the soil as he believed that that over-cultivation, especially upending the soil, threatened the vitality of the microbes. He held the view that the practice exposes deeper anaerobic microbes to oxygen, while more superficial aerobic organisms are buried, and he felt both of these consequences were potentially detrimental to the health of the vineyard. In holding such a belief Didier is not alone; the famed soil specialist Claude Bourguignon also subscribes to this theory, and closer to home Claude Papin of Château Pierre-Bise avoids turning the soil for exactly the same reason. Instead Didier always focused on just lifting the grass either side of the vines, a process that would also discourage superficial root formation.
