Selections of vineplants

Selections of vine stock and grafting

Within every grape variety, we can discern a large number of stocks varying very slightly from one another, by a certain number of characteristics: size of the grapes, of the berries, the division of the leaves... In the same plot, all these variations contribute to the complexity of the wine.

In the old vineyards, we always find an extensive variety of stocks; however some are affected by viral infections or degenerations. To counter these diseases and assure a regular production, for around thirty years, the trend is to select a minimum of healthy stocks and reproduce them by grafting them infinitely; the vines so planted are more homogeneous. Every stock reproduced in this way is called a clone. For the Syrah, in clonal selection, only some types of listed and marketed stocks are available. By systematically transplanting these selections, we eventually impoverish the genetic variety of the vine. The available selections in Syrah are rather productive, too much for our land where the stock density is from eight to ten thousand plants per hectare.

That is why, since 1990, as much for the replacement of dead vines as for the new plantations, we took up the practice of grafting in the domain. We selected from our vineyard in the Grandes-Places a large quantity of rootstocks presenting different and interesting characteristics, we were very careful to not spread diseases, and we grafted the selected buds. For the past 30 years, all the new plantings are from our own selections.