Life on the estate 3 questions: Sandra Caddeo, vineyard worker

What do you enjoy most about working in the vineyards?

What I enjoy above all is being outdoors and surrounded by nature. In the vineyards, you really live with the seasons. The landscape changes, the vegetation evolves, and so does our work. There is always a new stage beginning.

It is an environment where I feel comfortable. Being outdoors gives me a sense of calm and helps me feel more at ease. Although some periods are naturally more intense than others, I enjoy this rhythm and the fact that I am not spending my days indoors.

I also appreciate the very tangible nature of my work. What we do at a particular time of year will have an impact several weeks or even months later.

Another thing I enjoy about working at Château d’Issan is the human side of the job. We have a good relationship within the team, and I find the managers approachable and attentive. It allows us to work in a calm and supportive environment, with little day-to-day stress. In a profession where you spend so much time together, outdoors and in all kinds of weather, that means a great deal.

For me, enjoying your job is therefore not just about enjoying working in the vineyards. It is also about appreciating the environment in which you work, the people you share your days with, and having the satisfaction, season after season, of seeing the results of what you have helped to build.

You are involved in pruning, a task still often associated with men in vineyard teams. What do you enjoy about this particular skill?

Personally, I do not see pruning as a task specifically reserved for men. It is a skill that can be learned and is an integral part of working in the vineyard. I am currently the only woman on the Château d’Issan team who carries out pruning, but it is not something I particularly think about when I am out in the vines.

What interests me more is what pruning means for what comes next. You do not simply cut wood at random: you have to look at each vine, observe its structure and think about what should be kept in order to guide its growth and prepare for the future harvest. Every vine is different, so you have to adapt to what you see in front of you.

It is also a task whose results you can observe over time. Once pruning is complete, the vine gradually resumes its cycle: buds appear, shoots develop, followed by flowering and the formation of the bunches. A few months later, you find yourself looking at a vine that you personally worked on during the winter.

That continuity is what I particularly enjoy. There is a real sense of satisfaction in watching a parcel evolve all the way through to harvest and seeing the journey from the moment you prune the vine to the moment its grapes are picked.

Which times of the year do you particularly look forward to in the vineyards?

There are two: harvest time and winter. They are almost opposite ends of the vineyard calendar, but they are the periods I enjoy the most.

Harvest marks the culmination of several months spent caring for the vines, and it is the moment when all that work becomes very tangible. There is also a different atmosphere at the estate. We are all carried along by the satisfaction of finally seeing the grapes we have carefully tended throughout the year arrive at the winery.

And then, almost at the opposite end of the cycle, I really enjoy the winter months. The vines enter another phase, and we return to tasks that I particularly enjoy: pruning, bending, maintenance and tying the vines. It is the beginning of a new cycle, a new vintage. The previous harvest is behind us, and we are already beginning to prepare for the next one.

Ultimately, perhaps what I enjoy most about my work is this connection between the different seasons: nothing really stops at harvest. One year comes to an end, and a new chapter begins.