A year of judgement.

Pruning shapes the vine for the season ahead. The grower chooses the wood and buds to retain while considering the plant’s longer life. At Mouscaillo, the published vineyard approach includes attention to sap flow, vine health and replacing missing plants.

The bare vineyard also reveals the work around it: posts, wires, margins and hedges. The next harvest begins with these practical details.

As shoots develop, attention turns to how each parcel is growing. Weather and the condition of the vines guide the work. The same operation can be timely on one slope and premature on another.

Mouscaillo describes disease monitoring and the observation of pests and beneficial organisms. Such work makes farming a continuing response to what is happening in the vineyard.

As the fruit develops, the intended wine gives the grower a direction. A sparkling base wine and a still wine ask different questions of ripeness. The parcel, variety and season all matter to the answer.

The approach to harvest is a period of observation, sampling and decisions. A date written on last year’s calendar cannot make those decisions for this year’s crop.

Picking brings the season’s work into the cellar. At Clos Teisseire, the estate describes harvesting by hand into small crates. Pasquetto also sets hand harvesting within its approach to small-scale winemaking.

The harvest is a sequence of decisions about the fruit and how to handle it. Pressing, fermentation and the separation or combination of parcels begin to give those decisions a different form.

The vineyard moves into a new season while earlier harvests continue their development in the cellar. Sparkling wines following the traditional method undergo a second fermentation in bottle; ancestral-method wine completes its first.

Ageing, blending and preparation for release follow the needs of the cuvée. A cellar can hold several stages of that work at once. The year gives us a way into the story, while each wine follows its own timescale.