The making of the wines

Tending the vineyards and making Great Wines are the result of painstaking, daily work, together with experience and unique savoir-faire passed on from generation to generation, from father to son since 1731.

All year round, vine workers and piece workers tend the 130 hectares of the Bouchard Père & Fils estate under the watchful eye of Christophe Bouchard, technical director. A strict programme, drawn up according to the growing cycle of the vine, dictates the growers' work, from the awakening of the vines after the winter, to the harvesting of the grapes in September.
Uprooting, planting, grafting, pruning, de-budding, pricking out… Finding the right balance between human intervention and the biological cycle of the vine is essential to enable each "terroir" to reveal its particular characteristics.

Then September brings the grape harvest.

The grapes are always hand picked and carried in small cases of 12 kilos to avoid squashing the bunches. On arrival at the vats, the grapes are sorted to eliminate any undesirable matter (diseased grapes, leaves). At this stage, the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay are treated differently.