THE HUMAN
Human impact on our farm must be both efficient and humble. Letting nature express itself while controlling it without destroying it, such is our daily challenge.
We seek to adapt our vineyard to the animals and our animals to the vineyard: the flora serving the fauna, the fauna serving the flora! Sometimes we give a boost to the development of biodiversity; planting hedges, fruit trees and creation of 2 ponds are the result of a collaboration with the Conservatoire des Espaces Naturels de l’Hérault.
<< Without a winemaking family tradition, Mélanie, an osteopath in Corsica and Bernhard, a sommelier in Australia, nothing predestined us to realize our life project: that of living and working with passion in nature and with nature, and as a framework, the vine and wine >>.
Originally from Corsica, Mélanie and Bernhard Backhaus grew up in a small village in the heart of the Patrimonio appellation, with the maquis and vineyards as their playground.
Their parents very close to nature, a nature gardener father (farmer-breeder-shepherd-beekeeper-herbalist-artist) pioneer of biodynamics and an artist mother on Bernhard's side and osteopaths on Mélanie's side, passed it on to them from their young age respect for nature and the need to preserve it.
When in 2013 Mélanie and Bernhard decided to create VitiFarm®, their wine farm, in the town of Saint-Nazaire-de-Ladarez in Hérault, their choice first fell on an estate of 10 hectares of alone in the place called Barrac which was completed in 2015 by 15 hectares of vines and adjoining land in the place called La Rabidote for which they have a real crush.