The Gardens
Cultivating the Best Ingredients for Our Vinegars
The name of the company, La Villa vinaigres & jardins comes from a vision of self-sufficiency and sustainable development, our gardens producing some of the ingredients used in the making of our vinegars.
Wild Harvest and Natural Gardens for the Best Quality Vinegars
We harvest certain wild fruits on our property and the surroundings, especially chokecherry (or Virginia bird cherry – Prunus virginiana) and highbush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum), which we use to elaborate the base vinegars of several cuvées (Renart, Métis, Les Pléiades, etc.). This is also true for the conifer needles and cones that enter into the composition of Minashkuat, the alder pepper found in Métis and the milkweed flowers for Monarque. The rich biodiversity around us contribute in inspiring new ideas and fresh vinegar recipes.
Since our name – La Villa vinaigres & jardins – comes from a vision of self-sufficiency and sustainable development, we produce in our large gardens some of the ingredients that make up our vinegars. This is how we grow several varieties of carrots (Rasemotte) or beets (Citrons ultra-violets) as well as a wide variety of aromatic plants and heirloom tomatoes.
We practice market gardening on living soil, rich in organic matter, low on irrigation and, more importantly, without chemical input.
An Orchard Focused on Biodiversity for Eco-Friendly Vinegars
It is in spring 2020, with the plantation of walnut trees, that we started developing an orchard. The year after, we carried on the project by creating a nursery where cherries, honey locusts, saskatoon berries and other trees, fruit-bearing or not, are tended to, waiting to be planted on different blocks of the property.
In addition to vegetable gardens, thousands of various plants, from fruiting shrubs to full-size trees, will take root in an orchard based on a nature-inspired, biodiverse model in the following years.
Although we wish to eventually fulfill a significant part of our needs regarding raw material with our gardens and orchards, we will always complete our production through local artisans who share our values in terms of quality, authenticity, environmental responsibility and sustainable development.
Agriculture
Permaculture, wild orchard, fundamental culture (term used by the revolutionary farmer and renowned creator of apple icewine, Christian Barthomeuf), no matter the name we give it, our perspective on agriculture is a holistic one, where human beings accompany nature, where they attempt to develop a rich ecosystem focused on biodiversity so that a natural balance can emerge.
In addition to regenerating soils, our approach to agriculture, which is scarcely mechanized and free of chemical products, concretely contributes in the fight against climate change by increasing the content of organic matter in the soil (and thus by stocking the carbon that is absorbed from the air by plants rather than release it in the atmosphere).
Nourished by writings from Evelyne Leterme, Sepp Holzer, Masanobu Fukuoka and more, our goal is to practice agriculture in a natural and ecological way that goes beyond the minimal conditions required for a certification in organic farming.
