The vines set
the tempo of the work
ut of respect for the environment, since
2003 we have abandoned the use of
chemical herbicides and adopted instead
the system known as low-input cultivation « lutte raisonnéeLow-input cultivation is a set of procedures aimed at minimising
the use of chemicals in order to preserve soil quality.
».
Low-input cultivation is a set of procedures for
limiting the use of chemical additives in order to
conserve the integrity of the soil.
Soil-working by traditional methods (root-pruning,
harrowing, ploughing...) forces the vines to push
their roots deep into the earth and so to extract the
full typicity of the Chablis district's soils.
The Chablis vineyards
- a gift of the Jurassic
he Chablis district is one of the best-known and most prestigious
wine-growing areas in the world. It produces elegant
and highly-bred wines made from the Chardonnay
grape, the variety which gives birth to the finest wines of Burgundy.
Chablis, the most northerly of Burgundy's wine-growing districts and
a near neighbour of Champagne, lies along the valley of the River Serein.
The vineyards of the Domaine de la Tour face south with the vines planted
in rows set at 90° to the axis of the crest..
The influence of the Kimmeridgian
The soils of the Chablis district are sedimentary in nature, laid down
during the Upper Jurassic era some 180 million years ago. Their
composition is clay-limestone but their special quality derives from the
underlying rock, a layer of Kimmeridgian limestone (named after a
district in England where limestone is quarried). Its presence can be
detected by the small fossil shells found mixed in the soil.
All the Premier and Grand Cru vineyards lie within areas where the
limestone comes to the surface. This fact, combined with a maximum
of incident sunshine, confers on the Chardonnay the mineral aromas
which are so characteristic of the appellation.
