The estate
- An 8-ha vineyard spanning several Burgundy villages (Meursault, Pommard, Beaune, Savigny les Beaune)
- Red wines are made from Pinot noir grapes, and white wines from Chardonnay
- 50,000 bottles produced per year
- Most is sold direct to customers, 25-30% exported, to Japan
- Also runs a rural gîte business with wine tourism since 1978
Innovations
- At the end of the 1980s he reduced his use of chemical crop protection products, with less weed killer and more surface hoeing and grassing over between vine rows
- Experimentation of half-dose treatments
- Improvement of existing equipment to design a thermal weed control system
- Use of lightweight machinery for treatment/spraying (lightweight tractor on caterpillar tracks) to prevent soil compaction
- In the 1990s he opened his estate to the University of Burgundy for experimentation
- Joined a Dephy group to share his practices with other winegrowers
- In 2018, introduction of Notiphy Box system with Deaverde (chemical exposure prevention for professionals and the public, re-entry interval compliance)
- Tests with the “COB” for bottling, dissolved oxygen, inert gas treatment, dissolution of CO2 and O2, etc.
Observed results
- He has observed that half dose treatments are just as effective as full doses.
- Lower costs, since less use of chemical crop protection products (5 or 6 treatments instead of 12 in conventional farming)
- Improvement of soil structure and its organic matter content
- Vine root structure which goes deeper into the earth, giving a different character to the wine
- His overall approach of sustainable vine management is something to promote to tourists and his gîte guests
Find out more at: www.darviot.fr
Profile written by AgrOnov, the agroecology innovation hub