The Soil

Our soils are based on shale, which are sedimentary, but share similar properties to the schist's of Cote Rotie, Faugeres, Priorat, etc. Technically the soil is of the Glenrosa type having an Orthic A horizon overlying a Lithocuthanic B horizon. An Orthic A horizon is a surface horizon that does not show organic, humic, vertic or melanic character. A Lithocutanic B horizon is a heterogeneous and highly variegated zone of soil material interspersed with saprolite or weathering rock in various stages of breakdown. 

The layers of shale on our sites all lie in an almost perfectly vertical plane.  This allows for two important things.

 Firstly, the soils drain very easily, as excess water has almost unlimited drainage opportunity between the "bedding planes", or layers of shale.  Our vines are never in the situation where they can sit back and enjoy life; they are forced to push their roots down in a search for water.  The good thing is that shale based soils generally have a relatively good clay content, and there always is moisture down there between the bedding planes for the vines deeper roots.

There is also a good layer of weathering, or saprolitic shale near the surface of our soils.  In unprepared soils, this starts at 10 to 80cm below the surface, and the layer of saprolite is usually 50 to 100cm thick.  When our vineyard soils were prepared, they were ripped to a depth of 90cm, so the soils are a good mixture of loam and saprolitic shale.

Farming without the use of herbicides, pesticides and other harmful chemicals, we aim to promote life in our soils to assimilate nutrients and minerals from the shale based soil into forms our vines can take up.  Our wines truly express these great soils. See Bio.