In recent years, we have totally incorporated environmental preservation into our wine-making processes. In autumn 1998, to complete this approach, we decided to grow our grapes in line with the certified organic farming scheme.

This is the only system today that ensures adherence to the old adage that we have made our own: "We don’t inherit the land from our parents, we borrow it from our children".

We carry out a whole range of actions in the Château de Passavant vineyards to ensure that we combine the production of quality grapes with environmental protection.

- Fertilisation: We do not use chemical fertilisers. Instead, we make our own compost at the château. This is rich in microbes and re-launches the activities of micro-organisms in the soil. The soil’s natural acidity is corrected by traditional liming.

- Soil management: We do not use chemical weed-killers, but prefer grassing (50% or 25% of the surface area) and working the soil, which improve the structure of the soil, its resistance to erosion and its ability to retain water during the summer. In addition, these techniques also force the vine roots to work their way deep down into the sub-soil, which means that the grapes take on the full character of their ‘terroir’.

- Pruning Short: pruning limits yield, and this helps to bring out the full expression of terroir in the wines and keep better control over the vines, which, with less exuberant growth, will be much less sensitive to disease and therefore need fewer treatments.

- Disease protection: Since 1994, the Château de Passavant vineyards have been protected by ‘enlightened’ spraying techniques and, in 1999, converted to organic farming. Since 2000 the whole estate has been operated in this way and synthetic chemicals are no longer used at all.

- Vinifications The vinification cellars use a lot of water for cleaning purposes. Hygiene is vital to the process of making a great wine and the cellar master has to constantly wash his wine-making equipment (pressing vat, de-stalker, barrels, etc...). Since the 1998 harvest, all of this water has been recovered in a decantation pond, then spread on agricultural land. This relieves pressure on the village treatment plant and on the River Layon into which it discharges.

- Bottles: Since the early 1990’s, the company has been a member of "adelphe", an association that helps local authorities to finance glass recovery.