In the Cevennes, get to know Valérie and David Flayol, winegrowers and hosts Clos de La Rouvière

At the Clos de La Rouvière estate in the Cévennes National Park, halfway between Mount Aigoual and Mount Lozère, vines have existed for hundreds of years. It was present for the personal consumption of all the inhabitants. For the past 10 years, Valérie and David Flayol have been trying to preserve them and replant new plants on other terraces. They also welcome visitors to two gîtes.

Since 2013, we've been based in Molezon, in southern Lozère, in an area where there were no vines. We liked the idea of experimenting with vines on terraces, or bancels, as there were already some in the area.

It was an idea that matured over a number of years, leading to the planting of other types of vines that were already present here, so we planted Syrahs that are now 10 years old. We also planted Riesling, but very quickly realized that these were non-resistant vines that required a lot of chemical and human intervention, with incessant weeding, Bordeaux mixture and sulfur.

We reoriented the remaining plantings on terraces with either historic Cévennes grape varieties, hybrids or new plants such as Souvignier gris.

Over the past 2 years, we have finally gone back to planting only the historic hybrid called Villard blanc on the lower part of the property, which is proving to be very well adapted to our terrain and weather conditions.

The Esprit Parc Nationalapproach is completely in line with our project and its spirit, since we also hold the Nature et Progrès label , where there's a whole philosophy about personal management, managing one's time, one's vineyard, and one's production, storage and treatment processes from A to Z. It's something we like. It's something we really liked.

In addition to farming, we have developed agri-tourism with gîtes. We have a 6-bed gîte and a 4-bed gîte. Our aim was to explain our farming methods, whether permaculture vegetables or vines... and get holidaymakers to take part in our activities if they wished. Plus a wine tasting session for those who like wine! It's working out very well, and the two gîtes have joined Esprit parc national too.