In the Hérault, the “most sustainable vineyard in the world” finally connected to electricity

2023-06-10 09:45:06

Reason and common sense were on the agenda of the municipal council of Saint-Guiraud, a wine-growing village of 200 inhabitants 20 minutes by car from the Métropole of Montpellier (Hérault). This Tuesday, after a decade-long picrocholine war, elected officials agreed to grant a right of way that will allow Enedis technicians to extend the electricity network to the famous Virgile and Magdalena estate. Joly, extension in which the town hall will participate financially.

The other question of the connection to drinking water…

These exceptional winegrowers operate the Joly estate, 28 hectares organic and in the Terrasses du Larzac appellation, which was designated last fall by a college of experts in London as “the most sustainable estate in the world”. For about ten years, however, that they have settled in Saint-Guiraud, after having left the neighboring village of Saint-Saturnin, the couple and their children have lived and vinified their cuvées without water or electricity, for lack of being connected to the networks.

So far, solar panels and a generator have kept them running, but sustainability has its limits. Virgile Joly welcomes “this considerable progress” but remains cautious. The electricity work is still to be done before you can press the switch and see electricity appear as in most French homes and businesses since at least the 1960s. Especially since the other thorny problem , that of connection to the drinking water network, a competence of the community of communes of the Hérault Valley, is not yet on the agenda. Progress is slow.