Vineyard Work
Did you know?
Settling of the soil reduces the life expectancy of the vine stocks and the best wines come from the oldest vine stocks!
A few figures:
Around 80 vineyard horses in France in 2008 a horse requires 72 to 100 hrs of work per hectare.
For an appellation of around one hectare, 8,000 bottles of Burgundy can be produced at a cost of between 30 and 60 cents of a euro per bottle.
In Burgundy, 11 service providers work with horses on different domains.
The most prestigious domains use horses!
Horses first made a comeback to the vineyard as «main assistant» (to bring buyers into the vineyards and perform demonstrations of «old-style» wine harvesting), but the wine growers quickly realised there was a notable improvement to the health of the vineyard: horses are synonymous with quality !
The illustrious 1.8 ha Romanée Conti parcel has become more biodynamic with the use of horses. However, no reference is made to this use on the labels: this proves that it’s the quality of the horse’s involvement that makes the difference and not folklore !