Emilie and Benjamin Faucheron – Emilie and Benjamin Faucheron
- As elsewhere in France, in Montady, Emilie and Benjamin Faucheron’s vineyard was devastated by an unprecedented frost episode on April 8.
- That day, the 35-year-old winegrower shared her deep emotion on the estate’s YouTube channel in a video that has been viewed more than 120,000 times.
- Three weeks later, the couple say they are “combative” and try to save their harvest.
On April 8, on the Youtube channel of its operation, Emilie Faucheron did not hide her tears, in front of her vines, ravaged by frost. “All that is dead, and behind it, it’s dead,” raged the young woman, sobbing in front of one of her plots, ruined by a weather episode of unprecedented magnitude. ” It’s horrible ! I feel like I worked for nothing. Everything is screwed up. »During the night, his domain of Grande Canague, in Montady (Hérault), was shattered by freezing cold, down to -6 ° C.
In the department, no farm has been spared. “I know that we are not the only ones, there are many in this situation, lamented the young woman, in her video (here), viewed over 120,000 times. Everyone is in the same state as us. “
“I had been crying for an hour now, and I couldn’t stop”
That day, Emilie Faucheron was about to publish a little video, to tell, like every Thursday, her daily life as a winegrower. “I had prepared a video, which had nothing to do with the jelly,” recalls Emilie Faucheron to 20 minutes, this Monday, three weeks after the disaster which froze 80% of its domain. “I was in shock. I just wanted to tell subscribers that there would be no video, because I didn’t have the heart for it. All the videos, we make them with a smile. We always try to show the positive side of the job, even when it’s difficult. But that Thursday it was not possible. I had been crying for an hour now, and I couldn’t stop. “
In the hours that followed, Emilie and Benjamin Faucheron even wondered if they were not going to drop everything, and leave this activity so harsh to others. Because if this 60 hectare estate is a family farm, which they took over in 2014, it had to be bought out. And the couple still have credits on their backs. “I said to Benjamin” We sell everything, we stop, I’m fed up “, continues the 35-year-old winegrower, a former sales representative in agriculture. It is really not an easy job. We work with the climate, with the living. Complicated years, we have had, this is not the first. But losing everything, suddenly, like that, in an instant, had never happened to us. “
“We are not going to let go”
“Many times in the past, we had trouble making ends meet,” resumes his companion, Benjamin. I told myself we were never going to get over it. But the passion took over. Three weeks later, the winegrowers, elected Miss and Mister Agricole in 2019, say they are “combative”. “We will not let go, promises Emilie Faucheron. Usually, we don’t let go. But there, we do not let go even less than nothing. We absolutely have to bring out a harvest. “This Monday, on the 80% of the damaged area, three hectares seemed to restart” very, very, very timidly, nuance the winegrower. We will wait another two weeks. If in two weeks it hasn’t restarted, it won’t restart. “For the moment, we do not know”, confirms Benjamin Faucheron.
State aid? “We prefer to bet on our own work, than on helpers,” sighs the winegrower. A work that this couple in their thirties, who converted the estate to organic from 2017, is promoting on a YouTube channel, Emilie and Benjamin’s Vitibio, followed by more than 13,600 curious. In 2018, these videos were intended, first, for “fellow farmers”, “to show them how we work,” explains Emilie Faucheron. And since I wasn’t very good at computers, I put the videos in public. And we realized that people we didn’t know were commenting on our videos! We told ourselves that since it was fun, we were going to continue! “
In addition to this, you need to know more about it.
Every week, the couple explains to Internet users “what is behind the bottle”. And it is also via their YouTube channel, on April 8, that the two winegrowers received thousands of messages of support and encouragement. “Former winegrowers told us not to give up, that they had already experienced that”, continues the young woman. If the period is delicate, these winegrowers and YouTubers have, all the same, something to rejoice in: the cooperative cellar in which their grapes are vinified allowed them, since last week, to have the first bottles in their name.