The vineyards where Comte Cathare wines are
produced are all cultivated respecting the environment. Using
no chemicals, we are keen to preserve the local eco system in
as natural a state as possible researching ways of allowing our
vines to establish natural defences against their different predators.
We feed our vines compost made on each of our farms, to ensure
our soil is nurtured with live matter. The Earth is a living
organism and we do our part in trying to keep it that way.
It is with these beliefs that we have teamed up with The
Rainforest Foundation to help make a difference to their
projects - saving the Rainforests and its people from extinction.
The environmental crisis predicted by a number of well-informed
specialists still seems to go unheeded. If humanity expires from
global warming, starvation and lack of water, it will matter
very little that the national debt is paid, wether there is peace
in the Middle East or an Aids vaccine exists. All of these threats
are directly or indirectly linked to Rainforest destruction and
it concerns all of us.
The Biodynamic method
of culture allows us to farm our vineyards without chemicals. It
also increases our awareness of all the external energies that
interact with our eco system.
Healthy ripe fruit, grown in a natural environment
is the best method for making good wine. We extend the philosophy
that informs our practice in the vineyards to the cellar, always
looking to conserve energy, working with gravity, recycling water
and rejecting any use of chemicals. Once again this is done from
a committed position based on respect for the environment.
Producing wine is a process intimately linked to
the environment and its climate; as such, we are acutely aware
of the plight of the worlds rainforests and the urgency, for us
all, to strive to preserve nature’s balance.
THE ART OF COMPOST
Since 1996 we have been fertilizing our soil with
compost Made from Cow & Sheep manure. The soil is the great connector
of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and
restorer, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death
into life. Without proper care for it we have no community, because
without proper care for it we can have no life. The soil is alive
and a grave too, but nothing that dies is dead for very long. The
cycle, which the act of composting takes you through, is a description
of the fundamental biological process and also a metaphor of great
beauty and power. Our method of agriculture aims to be a responsive
partner in an intimate and mutual relationship. The soil is alive,
various and intricate, to care for it is a practical art. Our experience
of composting has allowed us to recognize the elemental energy which
is recycled again and again through the seasons. The soil is not
an extractable resource. We will continue our method of culture to
produce fruit in align with the natural energy cycles which sustain
life, with also the devotion of making better wine.
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