A first on Friday 3rd February: the Famille Fabre team – more than forty people, was invited to experience their own wine tourism offer: the electric bike ride through their vineyards. Under a magical sun… despite the few degrees, we set off on an adapted route with 4 stops in the mourrel of Luc Sur Orbieu. The bike with assistance, allows with less effort to enjoy breathtaking landscapes in a wild nature!
Stop 1: This is the opportunity for the Famille Fabre to present the new Carignan plantation ‘La Croix du Vignal’ in a wild part of the “mourrel” ( local scrubland ). Green cover between range of vines can be observed here.
Why sow between the rows of vines?
To improve the organic material in our soils, to avoid deficiencies of nutriment, to develop as much living soil as possible, a living soil needs to be covered with matter; biomass, insects, protozoa, fungi, organic matter… If our soils are bare, the first 30 cm of the soil no longer functions, burns in the sun; this is why we sow, to feed this part of the soil.
Sow a mixture of leguminous seeds (peas, broad beans), grasses (oats, wheat, barley), crucifers (mustard, false rocket alias diplotoxis; cross-shaped leaf):
+ flowers excellent allies for attracting pollinating bees
+ pivot stems where peas, for example, cling to make biomass, have a volume of vegetation to filter the sun, shade the soil, prevent water evaporation
+ leaves fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and return it to the soil
+ the roots also decompose the soil, to avoid large clods, hence more life in the soil
+ by decomposing, the plant gives back a maximum of organic matter once the stem has been bent to stop the plant’s growth. The plant should be destroyed in April in the middle of the flowering period to optimise the contribution of organic matter, to avoid any risk of frost, such as plants in the middle of the vine row raising the dew point at the level of the vines (instead of at ground level) and above all to avoid competition for water before these plants consume too much water for their flowering.
To discover the next 3 stops, we invite you to get on your bike accompanied by Jeanne and Fanny responsible for oenotourism at the estate!
More information at oenotourisme@famille-fabre.com and on +33 6 31 01 73 09.
