As soon as the véraison begins and the vines bear too much fruit, we select the most beautiful bunches that will reach maturity. This corresponds to the green harvest. These are done on the vintages where the vines have had a good outflow of bunches and are overloaded.
The risks of this overload are numerous:
- Decrease of the gustative quality of the grapes.
- With the hydric stress in summer, the maturities will not be beautiful because of the difficulty of the vine to feed all its bunches.
- With the autumn rains, fungi and therefore rot between the bunches will be able to develop.
In conclusion, green harvesting allows us to push the maturation further, especially for the reds.
What happens to the cut grapes?
"Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed" - Lavoisier
The cut grapes can have different new lives:
- At the estate de MasLauris, we leave them on the ground, allowing the vine to feed itself. Indeed, the organic matter of the grapes is returned to the soil, allowing to complete the feeding of our vines.
- There are also many ways to use it in cooking.
In pickles, in salt or in verjuice, green grapes are cut in early summer to make winter recipes. In sauces, syrups or even in mustard, these grapes will bring to these preparations beautiful acidities.
The most curious can go to the Restaurant Arkhé in Vaugines this winter, to discover the forgotten recipes based on verjuice, made with bunches of Serine from the Domaine de MasLauris.
