Dionysus’s cold rage

Personal Project

In this series I highlight the intense activity of the wine-growers working night after night to fight against the harsh reality of nature, the frost.

Frost kills the new buds on the vines. April 2021 in the Chablis region has been one of the worst month in the history of wine making with the extreme cold freezing and killing 80% of their vines. This is a hard time for everyone working fervently although the sight of what they orchestrate is just amazing and surreal to watch.

Two techniques are used to fight the damaging frost.

1: With “Candles” burning wax and alcohol very close to the vines every cold morning from 4am until 9am to warm up the buds.
2: With water, also called “Aspersion” or water jets, spraying thousand of litres of water, taken from local lakes, all over the vines. The action of creating frost on the buds generates enough energy to keep the buds warm during the crack of dawn’s coldest time.

Rage froide de Dionysus.

Dur labeur pour les vignerons du Chablisien qui, après l’arrivée du gel tardif, tentent de sauver les bourgeons nés trop tôt. 

Beaucoup ont perdu jusqu’à 80 % de la récolte à venir. 

L’utilisation des bougies ainsi que les aspersions sont utilisés pour réchauffer l’atmosphère et sauver le plus de pieds de vigne possible. 

L’objectif étant de préserver un peu du millésime 2021. 

Un moment fort, un travail intense sont illustrés dans ce documentaire photographique.