Chaumont

Chaumont (Au Tournant Red – Au Tournant White)

Chaumont-Gistoux - On the road to Longueville - Former horse meadow

Soil: vigourous and deep sandy-limestone of the Brabant plateau
Planted: 2023
Number of vines: 2500
Grape varieties: Divico - Chambourcin - Souvignier Gris - Johanniter

In January 2023, I receive a phone call from a certain Denis Delcampe, owner of the restaurant Le Tournant in Ixelles. I know this restaurant well, as it is one of the key places for natural wine in Brussels, and we have happily lost our way there a few times over the past fifteen years. He tells me that it was Isabelle Bervoets (an ineffable friend and owner of Quel Bon Vin t'Amène in Grez) who gave him my contact information, that he has access to a lovely plot of land in Chaumont-Gistoux, and that he would like to meet me to discuss the possibility of planting a few vines there, his dream. From that point, everything goes very quickly: we meet, get to know one another, set a framework, visit the ideally oriented plot in a pretty setting, talk about grape varieties, ripeness, rootstocks, nurserymen, place the orders—4 varieties, the trellising, we prepare the soil.

On February 7, after having reserved the first seedlings, Denis simply writes to me:

Shall we go?

I answer him: 'Well, if you're sure, I am too.'

And here we are a few weeks later planting half a hectare together: 2,500 vines, without even knowing each other. 14 long rows of 175 hybrid vines. This became our fifth plot, and each has a different story. This one is the most opportunistic, the riskiest too, but above all, it is the story of a meeting that is built over time at the same pace as the development of the vines.