Obtaining sufficiently ripe grapes pre-supposes perfect control of the health of the vineyard.

The great progress made in this field over the last thirty years explains to a large extent the growing regularity of good vintages. First of all, the quality of the spray products, their efficacy, and their ease of application have improved greatly. The power and precision, however, of new spraying equipment have also contributed to this success.

Downy mildew, powdery mildew, black rot, excoriosis, almost all the cryptogamic diseases with the exception of the diseases of the wood, esca and eutypa, which affect more particularly the Cabernet Sauvignon grape variety, are now kept well under control. The case of rot (botrytis cinerea) is certainly more delicate, but the low vigour of our vines and their traditional trellising system create conditions in which this disease has difficulty in developing.

The problem posed by parasites, insects and mites is much more complex, as with everything connected with the living world. In the past, the massive -and rash- use of wide-spectre action pesticides led little by little to the disappearance of their natural predators and brought about the explosive development of their populations, which in turn had to be destroyed by repeated applications of new pesticides...Thinking that we were doing the right thing, we were instead de-stabilizing the eco-system and got caught in a vicious circle. Once we became aware of the seriousness of the situation in the 1980s, we started to review our whole policy towards protecting the vines, with the aim of re-establishing and preserving the balance in the populations of mites and insects. After a number of years of patient work and calculated risks, we have come back to a stable situation in which all these populations live together and self-regulate, without it almost ever being necessary for us to intervene, and if we do so, then an environmentally-friendly solution is used. Nature is indulgent, provided we show it a little respect ...