A few words to tell a story of wine …
At Mas de la Bégude, the grape is the child king, the vine the queen mother, the winegrower is a shepherd, he accompanies. I try to reconcile my life and my philosophy with my work in a respect for nature and the personal interest that I have proposed for myself. First of all, to love nature, however capricious it may be, however generous it may be! And somehow always fill us up. So, let’s pick up the grapes by hand to protect them, put them in the crates, tread on them, put them in the vats by hand. As long as the grape is healthy: no SO2, no sugar, nothing but grapes.
What is the point of this process? It obliges the winegrower to be a guide and not a transformer.
Curiously, the guide will need experience, a lot of intuition, even a good dose of serenity, a capacity for acceptance since he directs, therefore intervenes in some ways. The winemaker asks the vineyard (through his work and his relationship with it) for grapes, not just any grape, for beautiful grapes to make wine. First step: there needs to be a match between the demand formulated and the plant’s capacity to produce. The vine is able by its behavior to send us a clear message in relation to our request; with wine, it’s the same relationship.
The processor is already a man of knowledge, he uses tools and products that will channel the grapes for a very specific purpose that he has set for himself. If man has talent, he will develop a product in his image, his knowledge, he will demonstrate his ability to understand phenomena, to appropriate them and therefore to be honored.
The guide takes a lot of risk, it is necessary for him to have knowledge, and not to be a prisoner of it. He has a work objective and yet he must agree to modify it according to the circumstances. If it succeeds in this accompaniment, this product is a natural product. In natural, there is nature.
The dimension of nature is immense compared to the human dimension.
The key is there: to put this dimension of nature in the mouth of the human being.
If success: smile, light humor there is, and lots of good things there will be. Gilles AZZONI, winegrower in Ardèche (Mas de la Bégude)