Sur Echalat Vineyard is a 1.3 hectare vineyard planted in 2008 on the Oregon side of Walla Walla Valley, at an altitude of 262 meters, in what was once the ancient Walla Walla River bottom.
11,960 trees/ha.
The training method in which one vine is tied to one support is called Sur Echalas.
Horsepower Vineyards is the second winery established by vigneron Christophe Baron, the eldest son of Baron Albert, whose Champagne house dates back to 1677, and who moved to Walla Walla.
The three vineyards listed below are located in the Walla Walla Valley in an area covered with boulders that was once a riverbed long ago, and all are grown biodynamically and farmed with horses.
As the name suggests, the fields here are plowed using horsepower alone.
Cayuse is now the envy of wine connoisseurs around the world, and in the time of Christophe Baron's grandfather, horses were used in all the vineyards.
Christophe was not only the first to adopt biodynamic practices in Walla Walla, but also the first to use horses for farming.
It is characterised by narrow, dense plantings that only horses can enter, not machines.
Horsepower, a cult wine from Washington State.
Horsepower Vineyards is a rare wine produced by Champagne genius Christophe Baron, who succeeded Cayeuse.
The fields are ploughed entirely by horse power.
Christophe's team represents tradition and history – and continues to write that history today.
This wine is Christophe's connection to his roots.
It is also a tribute to traditional techniques and family.
Like the Earth, it embraces all things, old and new.
That's Horsepower Vineyards.
Vigneron Christophe Baron first began practicing biodynamic farming in Washington's Walla Walla Valley in 2002.
Horsepower does not use any herbicides, chemical fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides. They work their vineyards with five horses, using vineyards trained to a single stake (called "sur echalas" in French) in a space of just 0.9m x 0.9m.
As the eldest son of Baron Albert, a Champagne House with a Hundred Years of History, Christophe's family has been farming the land in France's Marne Valley since 1677.
Until 1957, all vineyard work was done by horse.
Horsepower represents a return to this tradition, to an artisanal simplicity and purpose that has now been all but lost.
It's a window on the Old World, rooted in the New World.
Day in and day out, the only sound to be heard across all three fields is the thumping of hooves, a tradition that continues to plough and protect Horsepower's stony fields.