Vine grower Lilian Bérillon in the Rhône Valley supplies top wine estates such as Château Latour, Cheval Blanc, Roederer and Selosse. He propagates his vines using the elaborate Sélection massale - and also nurtures ancient varieties. Matthias Stelzig visited him.
85 hectares of vines are grown on the lonely Rhône island.
Matthias StelzigLilian Bérillon leans over a huge bush. "Every year we find new DNA from something," he says more into the thicket than to me, then emerges with a sapling in his hand and shouts: "Grenache!" Only the shape of the leaves indicates the presence of a vine. Here it looks more like the set of a Tarzan film. Because Bérillon simply lets the vines twine. He even builds metal structures that look like climbing frames in a playground. The vine lianas climb up them, as it is in their genes. "Each branch is a sapling from which we grow a new vine."
Lilian Bérillon runs the Pépinière Viticole on the Rhône island of Île de la Barthelasse near Avignon and propagates vines using the Sélection massale method. It works according to a simple principle: cut off branches and allow roots to form. Just like you do with plants on the windowsill. Conventional vine nurseries often only propagate one vine: the one with the highest yields. As a result, a newly planted vineyard often contains genetically identical vines. Lilian, on the other hand, cultivates shoots from all the good vines in the vineyard. "This creates more complexity in the wines later on," he explains, "and the biodiversity strengthens their resistance because pests and diseases have a harder time." However, the vines with the best grapes are often the ones with the lowest yields. That's why the grape growers have been sorting them out for a long time, as Lilian Bérillon explains. He dates the major upheaval back to 1971, "when the first of these clones came onto the market".
That is why he has been replanting old vines for a long time. Old winegrowers or farmers who have found a few forgotten vines somewhere in their garden often call him. Nobody knows where they come from anymore. So Bérillon travels there and examines the case on site. If the vine is still healthy, he takes a few shoots with him and lets them grow in the vine nursery. They stay in the 15-hectare biodynamic mother vine conservatory, his "nursery", for a year to take root. He first observes them for three years. "After that, all the viruses are isolated and breeding can begin," he explains.
Lilian Bérillon is a middle-aged man, slim and muscular. When he talks and gesticulates about his vines, you can see his muscles moving under his T-shirt. Lilian started the vine nursery with his wife Katja 20 years ago. The reason: "Back then, there were simply too many bad clones." With conventional propagation, diseases on the vine were more frequent. "I no longer wanted this genetic impoverishment," he reports. So he finally came to the island in the Rhône near Avignon. There are no neighbours here, just the Pépinière with 85 hectares under vines. "That's right," says Lilian and lets his gaze wander for a moment over the plain with its light-coloured limestone soils, as if he hadn't even noticed.
The right pruning angle is crucial.
Matthias StelzigIt suits him, who calls himself "jusqu'au-boutiste". This is someone who always goes to the extreme and takes perfection to the extreme. He discovered the term for himself. In his spare time, he is a mountaineer. And he doesn't settle for mediocrity there either: he has already stood on the summit of Mont Blanc. On the highest mountain in the Alps, which was long considered unconquerable, people suspected dragons and spirits. They even tried to banish the devil from there with exorcism.
"I'm obsessed with success," admits Bérillon. People believe him, and it's good for vine propagation. His parents and grandparents already ran the business. "My grandfather taught me how to graft," in other words, how to join a shoot and a rootstock. He opted for an unusual, angled cut. "Because it creates a very large contact surface between the shoot and the rootstock," he explains, "which is best for the sap flow." But it's a lot of work. Every summer, the same team comes to him on the island and sits all day at cast-iron punches from the 1950s to cut the stems at the right angle. Each joint is put together by hand. The graft is then dipped in wax and grows together. "Even so, everyone can easily manage 2,000 a day." By the end of the summer, there will be over two million. When the sealant is removed, he takes a very critical look at the surgical scar. Only when everything is perfectly healed does the cutting leave the ward. It's all an enormous amount of work.
Bérillon can charge a handsome price for his grafted vines: Six, sometimes ten euros per piece. In return, a technician supervises every winegrowing project, from the selection of rootstocks to soil preparation. "A point of honour," he says, explaining that he had only recently returned from Bourgogne. "The winegrower worked the soil incorrectly and planted too late. The cuttings didn't have enough time to take root and dried out," he reports. It's not quite as simple as with mass-produced goods. "You have to know that only around 50 per cent of the vines grow. Everyone has to reckon with failures."
Lilian Bérillon personally checks every single cutting.
Matthias StelzigThese are facts that winegrowers first have to be convinced of. In terms of hectares, he is talking about impressive five-figure sums. "You have to be a winemaker yourself and know the people," he says, "then you gain their trust." The customers he has already won over read like a who's who of top French wine: from Château Latour to Cheval Blanc and from Roederer to Anselme Selosse - everyone has already ordered from him. "Some even more and different varieties than planned to increase diversity." This is precisely the context in which grower locates its Pépinière. "We have seen the loss of genetic diversity, the waste of French vineyards, the intensive production in the vine nursery industry on the one hand," he says, "and the emotions that you can feel when you taste a fine wine." As much as he may demand of his customers, Lilian probably demands the most of himself. He only sells his own planting material, he has a total of 200 hectares of his own land and his team works according to precise records of every step. He has his own employee for this: "This is how we have standardised quality control."
You can only buy from him by order, preferably with Sélection massale from the winemaker's vineyard. With this exchange, he has created a unique collection of valuable clones. He has cultivated over 80 grape varieties from Arbane to Terret, many of which fly all too low under the radar in France. He may even have ensured the survival of some of them. "The search continues, we are investing in new regions with Cabernet Franc, Gamay or Gewürztraminer."
He has now cultivated 200 different clones each of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Grenache has reached an incredible 600. "Since we started, 5,000 projects have come together," he says and smiles. Hopefully there will be many more.
Camille Cohen and Lilian Bérillon
Pépinière Viticole Bérillon
Villeneuve-les-Avignon
www.lilian-berillon.fr