Our Vineyard
Website: www.legaragiste.eu
Email: benhall@legaragiste.eu
FR Mob:+33 (0)7 82 56 87 49
Our Vineyard
High on the banks of the Gironde estuary, with only the width of the river separating us from the likes of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Chateau Maugaux and Chateau LaFite etc you'll discover our vineyard - tucked away within the oldest Appellation of the Bordeaux Wine region - "Cote de Bourg". Wine has been made here since the Roman times.
Our vineyard is filled with 50 year old mature vines of Cabernet Franc and Merlot - perfect for blending into a mouth wateringly good, soft and fruity aromatic red wine. The small 2.2 hectares nestles in the rolling country side of Cote de Bourg or little Switzerland as this area is sometimes called.
Our wine is sold under the label of "Le Garagiste" - this term refers to an elite group of winemakers of the Bordeaux wine region who made wine during the 1900's, more or less out of their outbuildings or garages as they would be called now-a-days. The small productions of "vin de garage" tend to have a higher level of manual care and often receive excellent ratings which often helps the "Vin de Garagiste" to becoming highly desirable.
The limited production enables much of the work to be done by hand by us Gill and Ben Hall. Ben tends to the vines, preparing the grapes, throughout the whole vine growing season, including wine making and blending, through to designing the labels. Ben is your modern day “Le Garagiste**”.
Our Wine Tours and Tastings
French Vineyard Vacations offers optional wine tours and tastings here on site. These tours include:
- Walk around the vineyard with Ben - "Chef" of vineyard and wine making etc
- Wine tasting
- Video showing grape harvest and bottling procedures
Our Story
We've always been in love with France, we even planted a vineyard and produced our own white wine in the UK before moving to France.
In 2013 when an opportunity arose to move to France, we were delighted to purchase a small 2.2 hectare vineyard in the appellation of Cotes de Bourg, which is located within the world famous wine region of Bordeaux. Since renovating the farmhouse and re-building the chai and wine cellar, we have produced a base for oeno-tourism and regularly welcome visitors from all over the globe on wine holidays at “French Vineyard Vacations”.
Our gently sloping vineyard is located close to the Gironde estuary and provides a good diversity of soils and minerals and is currently (2019) planted with Merlot and Cabernet Franc vines. The Merlot enjoy the deeper clay and limestone soil, while the Cabernet Franc express themselves well in the deep sandy loamy soils of the higher end of the vineyard.
After settling into our life of as vignerons, we began to convert and evolve our vineyard into a more natural and ORGANIC terroir. We have also adapted our farming equipment to suit our needs. We solely tend to the whole vineyard ourselves with a vast majority of the work being completed by hand.
In 2018, as part of a 5 year program, we removed 0.6 hectares of our Merlot vines - we plan to replant these areas with Malbec and Carmenere from MASSALE SELECTION vines at a later date.
In the meantime, these areas are planted with wild flowers and green manures which provide a welcoming home for insects, birds and animals, together with auxiliary fauna. Soft soil cultivation, annual sowing of green manures, spraying of manures, concoctions and preparations are used to improve and revitilise the whole terroir.
By using different methods of pruning, maceration and natural fermentations, together with aerobiological techniques, which respect the cycle of the vines; our aim is to produce SMALL CUVEES of unique BOUTIQUE WINE with a beautiful bouquet, a fresh and fruity flavour with good acidity.
The vineyard is registered with ECOCERT and this year’s vintage of 2019 will be labelled as “IN CONVERTION”, with the fully organic label being applied in 2021.
Going forward, we believe our wine will be highly desirable and greatly sought after due to the rare combination of organic, biodynamic wine produced from MASSALE SELECTION vines.
