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© Andre Schoesser
Good Life From the field to the vineyard
3 minutes
The secret of the golden vine
For centuries, the landscape along the Moselle has been shaped by viticulture. Even the Romans appreciated the terroir in the south-east of Luxembourg. To visit Cep d’Or is to encounter a unique family business.
Life is too short to drink bad wine, said Goethe, allegedly. It’s probably a misattribution but the core of the message is sound. Life is definitely too short, especially to drink bad wine. That’s why our search for good wine leads us here, standing in the mud just above Stadtbredimus.
© André Schösser
A search for good wine
Our shoes are covered in clay. It looks more like a mud-patch than a vineyard. The word vineyard conjures up images of juicy grapes and green vines bathing in the sun. Of a romantic, idyllic country life. Sun-ripened nectar in beautiful glasses. Like in other realms of life, the work that goes into all that is beautiful and elegant remains unseen, it is laborious and much less romantic than you’d think.
A generational project
Back to our mud-patch and the makings of good wine. It is spring 2021 and together with Lisa Vesque and her father Jean-Marie, we watch helpers plant new vines by hand in the muck field that is going to become a vineyard. A rich harvest will take years, an emotional realization connected to the passing of time, slow progress and long-term goals. It requires devotion and trust in nature and its inner workings. You can’t think in terms of quarterly results when investing in a vineyard. You have to think in decades. In 25 years, this vineyard here will still be cultivated. Lisa will be in charge then and her father Jean-Marie might drop by to offer gracious tips that she might just as graciously ignore. It’s a generational project. That’s why they selected the vines together in the Champagne region.
It’s October. At dawn, mist hovers over the River Moselle. The vineyards have a green glow. Autumn colours are beginning to appear. The plush grapes huddle between the vine leaves. The harvest is in full swing. We don’t see any machines. The grapes on the steep slopes along the Moselle are usually picked by hand and immediately cleaned. Small tractors pulling trailers full of grapes can be seen puttering along the river.
© André Schösser
The river valley is home to many vineyards that form the “Route du vin” (“Wäistrooss” in Luxembourgish), a 42 km route through the Grand Duchy. Domaine Cep d’Or（https://www.visitluxembourg.com/domaine-viticole-cep-d-or） (or, the golden vine) is one of them.
A gift from the gods
The gate to the vineyard is wide open. We walk in and are immersed in a hullabaloo of fizz, clatters and creaks. If you don’t want to get your hands dirty, this isn’t the job for you! But dirt is the wrong word. After all, what causes the stains here is exquisite grape juice!