The 47th wine and local products fair should have been held this weekend of May 1 in Seclin. But Covid forced organizers to cancel the event, for the third time in a year. Some producers had the idea of ​​coming to the North with their bottles ...

 

The Gauthier family reinvents itself to sell the stock
Joëlle and Pierre Gauthier will be at Seclin this weekend… But not at the wine fair. The couple operates Château Pertignas, 70 hectares "in the most modest appellation of Bordeaux: Entre-Deux-Mers", summarizes the winegrower. “But that does not prevent us from making great wines of which we are proud! "

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In Seclin, where we met her with her daughter Marion in 2018, "we were selling about two thousand bottles each time." Orders for the northern weekend of May 1, amounted, a few days ago, to a thousand. Joëlle praises the loyalty of her customers, which she and her husband will deliver to their homes on Saturday and Sunday. "We will miss all Belgians ... And we will not have any new customers, regrets the Bordelaise. But it allows us to sell and maintain the links. "

 

No stand to pay, that's € 1,500 saved. Certainly. But the Gauthier have a thought for the organizers, Anaïs Lemarchand and her husband, "for whom it must be very hard, these three cancellations". Producers at Pertignas Castle have also suffered from the health crisis: only one show (last summer) instead of the usual twenty, but a dozen employees to pay. "Because the vine grows! We have to work every day".

 

So the family reinvents itself, in addition to selling to customers' homes: markets, direct sales, new website thanks to a student hired on a work-study basis. Joëlle underlines the solidarity shown by the suppliers, unlike the merchants who, "have let the winegrowers down. They buy us wine in bulk, at a price that does not even pay for the vinification ..."

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And the frost, like a double sentence

For the Caujolle-Gazet estate, Benoît Huet is relieved: "We were relatively little affected by the frost, but we are absolutely miraculous". He shows us a map where, in fact, we can see the damage throughout this region of Hérault.

The castle of Pertignas, in Entre-Deux-Mers (in the Bordeaux region) recorded a 35% loss. But Pierre and Vincent Gauthier relativize: "We are lucky to have plots in several municipalities, not all on the same plateau. Yes, it is double the penalty, with the Covid. But we winegrowers, we consider that the frost is one of the vagaries of the profession… It's still hard to take, especially since we don't have the means to insure ourselves. "