A Year at the Farm

A Year at La Ferme

People often ask us, “When is the best season to come?”

Our answer always disappoints a little, because it’s honest, there isn’t one. Or rather, there are four. Each transforms the place so completely that you might think it’s somewhere else entirely, and yet it’s always the same land, the same walls, the same fountain in the street.

Here’s what each season offers.

Spring, The Awakening (March to May)

This is the most dramatic season. Not in the theatrical sense, in the sense that everything changes fast. One morning, the branches are bare. The next, there are buds. The following week, the garden explodes.

The cherry trees blossom first, followed by the apple trees in the orchard. The birds return, you weren’t counting them before, but their return makes their absence suddenly obvious. In the morning, the air is still crisp and the light has that raking, almost horizontal quality that makes everything more beautiful than it has any right to be.

This is the ideal season for walking. The paths are still quiet, the fields are green, and the Chablis vineyards begin to buzz with activity, the winemakers pruning, tying, watching the sky.

The jacuzzi reopens in May, and the first evenings outside have that particular sweetness of a pleasure rediscovered.

Summer, The Fullness (June to August)

Summer here isn’t the Côte d’Azur. It’s softer, slower, greener. The heat comes in waves, but the farm’s thick walls keep a natural coolness that air conditioning has never managed to replicate.

The garden is at its peak. Roses climb the courtyard walls. The barbecue comes into its own. Breakfasts are taken outside, under the walnut tree, with sunlight filtering through the leaves.

The evenings are long, daylight lasts until ten, and the jacuzzi under the stars becomes a ritual. You hear the crickets. Sometimes an owl. And always that background silence that sounds like nothing else.

It’s also the season of the most generous markets, cherries, apricots, tomatoes that still taste like tomatoes, fresh goat cheese. The villages come alive, local festivals punctuate the weeks, and the winemakers open their doors for late afternoon tastings.

Autumn, The Gilding (September to November)

If we had to choose, and we insist, nobody is making us, autumn might be our secret favourite season.

The vineyards turn to gold. The light becomes amber, thick, almost tangible. Morning mists rise slowly over the valley, and for a few minutes, the landscape looks like a painting you wouldn’t dare paint for fear it would seem exaggerated.

This is harvest time in Chablis, a spectacle in itself. Tractors loaded with grapes cross the villages, the scent of must fills the air, and the cellars hum with energy. It’s also the time when mushrooms appear in the forest, when the markets overflow with squash and walnuts, and when the bistros relight their ovens.

At La Ferme, the outdoor fireplace comes into its own. The evenings grow shorter, but they gain in intensity, a fire, a blanket, a glass of Épineuil rosé, and the kind of conversation that deepens as the light fades.

Winter, The Retreat (December to February)

We won’t lie to you, winter here is real. It’s cold. The fields are bare. The sky is often grey, sometimes a glacial blue that takes your breath away. Some mornings, frost draws patterns on the windowpanes and the courtyard glitters as if someone had dusted sugar over every stone.

And that is precisely why we love it.

Winter at La Ferme is the fire in the lounge. It’s a book taken from the library and an afternoon that passes without your knowing how. It’s a warm, generous breakfast when the world outside is silent and cold.

It’s also the season when the jacuzzi is most spectacular, steam rising into the freezing air, the stars sharper than ever, and that enveloping warmth that makes the cold around you almost sensual.

Christmas markets light up Tonnerre and the surrounding villages. Winemakers open their cellars for fireside tastings. And the countryside, stripped of its leaves, reveals lines, horizons, and architecture you never see in summer.

This is the season for those who love deep quiet. For those who know that beauty doesn’t need sunshine to exist.

Each season changes the face of the place, but not its soul. And every season is the right one, as long as you arrive with the desire to be where you are.