El Placer: an organic vineyard & winery in Lelystad, the Netherlands

Just at the start of the new millennium we – Johan, Lidwien and a group of enthusiastic volunteers – made a start with a new 50-acre vineyard a bit north of Lelystad. Our cottage and the shed had been built during the winter before and we went on preparing the surface of the bare but clean and never polluted soil of this piece of the Flevopolder, the former sea bottom. We planted the first 500 Regent-vine plants, in the next springtime followed by another 400 Regent and 500 Rondo-vines. Both are early-ripening “PIWI”-varieties of the vitis vinifera, quite recently breeded in Germany, both mildew-tolerant and suited for the climatological conditions in this middle part of the Netherlands.  If well-treated, they can deliver nice harvested grape material for the production of tasteful red and rosé-wines. 

El Placer is situated in the Groene Velden – a project of the local municipality of 5500 acres meant for small-scale organic rural enterprises. On our piece of land you will find now a wooden shed of 12 by 9 m. with our winemaking facilities, our cottage annex tasting-chamber, some small sheds and a wagon. The name El Placer is Spanish for The Pleasure: Lidwien worked and lived as a social worker and writer in Chile for 8 years, we have many Chilean friends, we fell in love with the Chilean wines and like to enjoy them in happy togetherness. Johan brought in his competence as teacher/sociologist, practical researcher and mechanical engineer.

Nowadays, El Placer is one of the 12 recognized and SKAL-licensed organic vineyards in the Netherlands, where the grapevines grow without the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Besides the organic working vineyards, there are about 120 other traditionally working vineyards in The Netherlands of more than 100 acres in size. This number is rising. In total they cover an area of more than 300 ha. 

The El Placer-concept is a special and fully natural one. Characteristics: Craft-oriented, small scale, simple means and methods, no use of heavy and soil-compacting machinery, experimental, innovative, still business-like but not for profit, run by volunteers. We covered the soil-surface with a mixture of herbal weeds and cleaver-varieties; a variety of planted trees surround the vineyard; we use(d) several natural compost-teas as a preservative against fungal attacks; we wrap the bunches of grapes into thin nonwoven bags during the last 10 weeks before harvesting – an El Placer invention to prevent losses by insects, birds and hail. These small bags also cause a better ripening.

The plants grow in two sections: in respect of windstorms the plants in the second section are positioned in an angle of 45 degrees to the first part. As our binding and leading system, we practice double Guyot, consciously softly pruned. We don’t use fertilizers or manor: we only use organic compost from mowing-and pressing-material (from the winery), and woodchips from pruning material; in this way we create a closed cycle of natural local organic material: apart from the juice of the grapes everything we take out of our yard we bring back in it again.

Over the last 25 years our knowledge and experience about pure natural organic viticulture extended rapidly. We discovered how to avoid the normal monocultural approach, and instead we learned to respect and letting grow a wide biodiversity. We learned to consider our vineyard as an impressive ecological and forestal cooperating biotope, a polyculture, under which a huge mycelium grows that is feeding the vines which in turn deliver sugar to the mycelium to grow further. This aerobic, fungi-based, water-buffering and water-delivering structure forms our best guarantee for a sustainable future, even in a climate-changing era.

The results of the El Placer concept: healthy long-living vines, little fungal infections, no bird-damage, a green and rich flowering yard, a great variety of insects, birds and wildflowers, a wonderful natural atmosphere and smell in which we do our daily cooperative teamwork during the year and … as a reward: fine and undamaged crops, resulting in five tasteful local wines:

• the dark blue-red Rondo-wine with its heavy cherry-like fruity taste
• the Regent as a spicy Bordeaux-like red wine
• the blend of Rondo and Regent: Father’s Proudness (Vaders Trots)
• the Regent-Rondo rosé wine as a spicy-fruity meal-companion
• the Barricade, the oakwood-ripened mature blend from Regent and Rondo.

The quality-class of the El Placer wines is comparable with premium-wines from the traditional winemaking countries.

Besides making tasty wine, the main purpose of El Placer is to demonstrate that organic viticulture is possible. Moreover, we call ourselves organic+, as we do not use any chemicals nor pesticides and we also refrain from the use of copper. We demonstrate that it is possible to make tasty pure natural wines without polluting the soil. This is our modest contribution to the urgent climate situation. We spread this message around. During our wine tasting sessions and workshops wine making, we aim to inspire our visitors by telling an appealing story about how we work and why we do so. 

In 2016 El Placer established another vineyard, called de Wilde Wijngaard (The Wild Vineyard) in Lelystad, on land leased from the Wageningen-University. This vineyard (1 ha) works with the same natural and biotopical concept as El Placer and is conducted by a separate foundation: Stichting Wijnbouw Lelystad. With three varieties of white vines, several tasteful white wines are made. These wines can be purchased in the wine shop of El Placer.

You are welcome to visit us!

You can enjoy the marked route with information. Wine shop: Saturday from 10.00-14.00 hours and by appointment. We receive groups from max. 15 persons (winter) to max. 40 people (May-September).

• Guided tour through the vineyard and the winery: walk along the vines and the ripening grapes. Explanation of the lead- and bind-system, the treatment of the plants and the vinification.
• Winetasting: taste several red and rosé-wines, and white wines from our vineyards.
• Workshops winemaking: the basics of wine making, including guided tour and wine tasting