To us, being a wine-grower today is not just being a grape producer, in the same way potatoes can be produced on an industrial basis, it’s not being a super driver of ever-heavier and ever-more polluting tractors, it’s not being an agrochemist, as a certain lobby would still like, however; nor is it being the winemaker who juggles with his magical cures to make up for some failure in growing the grape or quite simply to reassure himself, nor is it someone who thinks that drones will soon be able to replace the wine-grower among his vines.
Philosophy
Discover what drives us
Respect for living things
To be in harmony with your vines and encourage practices that respect the life of the soil and the balance of the plant and the environment. Organic and biodynamic agriculture are the keys to this.
On our estate La Soufrandière, we have made the choice to work with the natural rhythms (the moon, planets), we regularly use infusions of plants to strengthen the vines against diseases, we carry out all work by hand (apart from a tractor used for tillage and treatment) to limit soil compaction.
Love of the terroir
The scent of warm box growing on the limestone steppes of Vergisson, the white stones of Cruzille, the red earth in Vinzelles or Chasselas (high in iron oxide) – this is what drives us.
A single grape variety, Chardonnay, a host of terroirs of Jurassic clay/limestone, 40 to 180 million years old. Without life, the terroir is nothing – and vice-versa 😉
Bringing out our appellations
All our wines are produced using the same procedure
- 100% hand-picking by our team
- micro-cuvées that correspond to the vine plots
- 100% yeasts naturally present on the grape
- no chaptalization nor acidification
- vinification in traditional 6–18 year old casks or stainless-steel vats
- low use of sulphites
- maturing on lees, 11–17 months depending on cuvées
- natural cork (not washed with peroxide) to allow the wine to live as time goes by
Sharing and handing down
La Soufrandière and Bret Brothers also stand for “human adventure”. This is why we favour human labour instead of using machines or pesticides (2 ha at La Soufrandière = 1 full-time job). Today, the Bret Team represents the equivalent of eight full-time people, excluding grape-pickers.
We are always very happy to be able to pass on our passion to our staff members, our trainees, or our customers who come to see us at the estate.
WINE-GROWER FOREVER
