ormiale wine

In 2024, I went to Entre-deux-Mers (15km south of St. Emilion and 8km from Castillon la Bataille) to harvest grapes with Ormiale.

The yield here is around 20-25 hectoliters/hectare. The vines are beautiful, and worked biodynamically. This is the project of friends and artists, Jasper Morrison and Fabrice Domercq. Here's a very good interview with Fabrice.

We picked, sorted, and destemmed Merlot & Cabernet Franc by hand. Destemming takes days for a big team of friends working together, but could be done in hours by machine. There are a few technical reasons to do it the slow way, but, really, it's to preserve the music of quiet and conversation in the small courtyard outside the cellar.

I stayed to do the pigeage and look at the first labratory analysis. The wine cellar is small and old, with drawings scratched into the walls from La Révolution française. There's oak barrels, and lots of bright green dame-jeannes.